


Bend or Break

by petreparkour



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Evil Thor, F/M, Gen, Hurt Loki (Marvel), Hurt Thor (Marvel), Implied/Referenced Torture, Infinity War Speculation, Loki (Marvel) Feels, Mind Control, Mind Manipulation, Minor Spoilers, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Precious Peter Parker, Thanos (Marvel) is a dick, The Tesseract (Marvel), Thor (Marvel) Feels, Thor (Marvel)-centric, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Very minor dont worry, but recently discovered since infinity war just came out, eventual good thor, its ok dont worry, non-canon compliant, not really any canon spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-04-26 20:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14409753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petreparkour/pseuds/petreparkour
Summary: When Loki saw Thanos’ ship rise into view from where he stood beside Thor, all he felt was dread. He had no idea what would be coming.Loki had fully expected to receive the same treatment that he had the first time he’d been on Thanos’s ship—Thanos ripping into his head and pulling his mind apart only to put it together again the wrong way, or cruelly defacing his body with burns and brands.Yes, that was what he had expected. That wasn't what had happened. Somehow, he wished it was.---Or: When Thanos's ship pulls up in front of the ruined Asgard, Loki and the Avengers have to deal with the fallout.COMPLETEAs of December 14, 2018, Chapter One was rewritten and spacing was fixed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters... I wish. Marvel owns them. 
> 
> This chapter is based off of Loxxlay’s A Moment of Peace. Go check it out! It’s awesome. 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> EDIT (December 2018) Chapter One has undergone a major rewrite. The first part is the same, but the second part has been changed so it is less similar to another work on this site. Spacing is also fixed! (Hooray!) Enjoy!!

When Loki saw Thanos’ ship rise into view from where he stood beside Thor, all he felt was dread. He’d had no idea what would be coming.   

 

Thanos’s underlings flooded the ship, herding screaming Asgardians into a massive prison cell that had, unfortunately, hosted a great many more people than this decimated Asgardian people. At Thor’s discreet gesture, both Valkyrie and Heimdall hid themselves in the crowd. They'd hardly had a chance to fight.

 

Both Loki and Thor had been singled out and roughly manhandled to another room, where Loki had been left under the watch of Thanos’s lackeys and Thor had been forced to his knees on a raised dais near the front of the room.

 

Loki had fully expected to receive the same treatment that he had the first time he’d been on Thanos’s ship. Thanos ripping into his head and pulling his mind apart only to put it together again the wrong way, or have one of his men cut into him with his magic.

 

He hadn’t expected that treatment to be bestowed upon Thor.

 

Thanos had entered the room wearing that damned Infinity Gauntlet that Odin had supposedly locked up in Asgard’s Vault. Loki knew what came after–the inevitable speech, gesturing for his men to push Loki towards Thor, the grasping of his skull and ripping into his mind–

 

But the powerful being did none of that. He simply strode a few paces and stopped just behind Thor’s right shoulder, who twisted awkwardly to compensate for his missing eye. “Loki of Asgard,” He rumbled in his impossibly deep voice that sent shivers down Loki’s spine. “You have returned at last. Without my Mind Stone, at that.”

  
  
Thor didn’t remove his gaze from the Titan, but Loki could see his body go rigid. Loki inclined his head. “I had a setback, as they say.”

  
  
Thanos tilted his head in acknowledgement, but took another step closer to Thor, who withdrew back a bit more. “I have, however, tracked the Tesseract to you. You have fulfilled your mission, never mind a few years overdue.”

 

Now Thor did stare back at Loki, disbelief written across his features. Thanos seemed to take advantage of his brother’s momentary distraction, as he grabbed Thor’s neck and pulled him upwards until Thor’s toes were barely brushing the floor. The god made a strangled sound and made to pull away, but he couldn’t get enough leverage.

 

Loki extended his hands placatingly, trying not to betray the growing knot in his stomach. “Unfortunately, my friend, you are mistaken. The Tesseract was in Asgard’s vault, and it’s been destroyed."

 

Thanos’s grip tightened. “How sad to hear.”

  
  
He suddenly released Thor, who fell to his knees, gasping for air. Thanos continued, ignoring Loki’s brother’s distress. “Fortunately, this endeavor has not been entirely in vain. I have been in need of a new champion.”

 

There it was. The words that sealed Loki’s fate. He sent a desperate look towards Thor, who was beginning to look up again. He really, _really_ didn’t want Thor to see this. But instead of starting towards him, Thanos grasped Thor’s cape and pulled him back to his feet. “Your accursed brother will do, will he not?”

 

Ire flashed across Thor’s face, along with a hint of fear. Loki’s insides twisted into knots. If he would admit to anyone (he wouldn’t), Loki hadn’t taken much convincing from Thanos’s part to take up his scepter and invade Midgard. But Thor–Loki knew his brother; he wouldn’t break under a few ounces of pressure and lay siege to the place that he loves. Thor’s love of Midgard would be his downfall, and it would take a very, _very_ long time for him to crack.

 

“I will not _serve_ anyone, especially not you.” Thor spat, sounding furious and kingly, another thing that Loki would never admit.

 

Thanos simply laughed. “Oh, you will. Everyone does.”

 

His eyes fell onto Loki, and he gestured to the guard nearest him. “Put him in his old cell.”

 

“Wait–!” Loki began, and Thanos arched an eyebrow in anticipation. Mind made up, Loki reached into the ether and pulled out a glowing blue cube, doing his best to ignore the betrayed and seemingly physically pained look that Thor gave him. “Do not bother using him.” He told the purple being, the Tesseract glowing the same color as Thor’s lightning. “He will not break.”

 

Thanos opened the hand with the Gauntlet on it, and the Tesseract pulled itself out of Loki’s grip and flew into the palm of the Mad Titan’s hand. “I appreciate the advice.” Thanos told Loki, and he closed his fist around the Tesseract and _squeezed_. The cube resisted for a moment, then shattered. Thanos plucked the newly glowing Infinity Stone and held it over a spot on the Gauntlet. Seemingly by a magnetic force, the stone flew into place. “But I will take my chances.”

 

Thanos nodded to the guards. Loki tried to resist, but three men came up at once and pulled him out of the room. They hauled him down dark halls that Loki could navigate with his eyes closed. There had been no sounds from the previous room except for the occasional rumbling of Thanos’s voice. The guards shoved him into his old room and slammed the door shut. Loki had a few minutes standing there, breath wheezing in his chest, trying to shove down the blistering memories of this room. A few minutes of blissful silence. Then–

 

Thor’s screams echoed off the walls.  

 

——

 

Loki was pacing when they threw Thor into the cell.

 

He had been pacing for… Odin knew how long. The screams had started, stopped, and started again so many times that Loki had lost count. He had tried to drag his magic out from the prison that Thanos’s wards had stuffed it in, tried so many times that he’d lost count of that too, but all it had earned him was a headache and a bloody nose.

 

Two of the Chitauri guards (Loki wondered if they knew exactly how he had used them all those years ago) opened the cell door. One brandished its rifle at Loki, and the other heaved Thor into the room and unceremoniously slammed the door shut.

  
Loki could see the ragged rise and fall of his breath, but from the god of thunder’s position on his stomach, Thor’s face was turned away from Loki, and he _wasn’t moving._ Loki stood there for a moment, halfway convinced this was a dream. Here he was, in the chamber of his nightmares—the room where he could identify every nook, every cranny where he could try futilely to hide, to hide from Thanos or Maw or any of the new torturers that the Titan had decided to inflict on him. Screaming—for Frigga, for Thor, for Odin, for Heimdall, for anyone that would find him, save him. Yet here Thor was, on the ground, in the same spot that Loki had been thrown, time and time and time and time again. It was his dream and his nightmare all in one.

 

His brother didn’t move. Neither did Loki.

 

Loki finally unfroze when Thor let out a pained, unmuffled groan. He obviously didn’t know anyone else was in the cell with him—if he had, he would never have shown such weakness.

 

Loki let his boots scuff obviously on the floor as he strode tentatively to Thor. His brother stiffened noticeably, and his breathing slowed deliberately. Loki knelt, and ever so gently, placed two fingers on Thor’s shoulder.

 

The reaction was immediate. Even incapacitated, Thor was deadly. Loki didn’t even see his fist coming until he was being thrown halfway across the cell onto his back.

 

“Thor,” He complained breathlessly. The air had been forced from his lungs.

 

“Don’t,” Thor managed, his breathing speeding up again. “Touch me. Don’t touch me.”

  
  
“Brother, it’s me,” Loki said, picking himself out of the crater he’d formed.

 

“That…” Thor pressed his forehead against his arm. “Is exactly why.”

 

“Thor, I can help—”

  
  
“Stop it!” Thor burst out before his face paled so dramatically that Loki would have found it comical in any other situation. He clutched at his head, and his knees pulled to his chest. The eyepatch gleamed in the dim light.

 

Loki sighed. Of course, of course. Why could Thor not take the slightest bit of a _hint_ and figure out that moving wasn’t such a good idea? It had taken Loki all of three seconds the first time he’d had a session with Thanos to discover that trying to sit up quickly ended in pain.

 

“Brother,” Loki said, and Thor stiffened again. “Brother, why can’t you let me help—”

  
  
“Like you helped with the Tesseract?” Thor muttered. “Like you helped by letting Hela into Asgard? Tell me, Loki, how do you plan on _helping_ this time?”

 

Loki took a step back. That was a rather… bleak outlook on his recent decisions. “I saved your life,” He snapped defensively. “Are you not happy to be alive?”

 

“Not at the moment,” Thor said into his arm. His tone was as dry as bone.

 

“Well, you had better get _used to it!”_ Loki exclaimed loudly, then immediately regretted it. Not only did Thor further curl into himself and cover his ears with a poorly-concealed groan of pain, but Loki had just given him the worst sentence of all: knowledge.

 

If Thor had heard him over the ringing in his ears, he had to know exactly was coming. Between Loki’s experience with Thanos and the burst of anger that had accompanied it (Thor knew that Loki would never let something slip in anything but anger), Thor knew that had to be true. That this would happen again. So often that he would have to _get used to it._

 

Obviously not having learnt his lesson, Thor tried to get up again. He managed to hoist himself onto a wobbly elbow and squint at Loki with his one good eye.

 

“What,” Thor said. It wasn’t a question.

 

Blast. Loki tried to back up. “I just meant that you’ll probably have that headache for a while—”

 

“Loki.”

 

“Brother,” Loki retorted, not missing a beat.

 

Thor dropped his head back down with a sigh. “How are we going to get out of here?”

 

That thought hadn’t even occurred to Loki. There was no _getting out_ when it came to Thanos. There was just survival, and pain. He had forgotten that Thor didn’t know this; _had_ no way of knowing this.

 

“Come on,” Thor goaded. The effect was lost, though; his voice was faint and thready, and his face was still pressed against his arm, as though the pain would go away if he squeezed hard enough. It was a fool’s hope, but Loki didn’t blame him for it. “You can’t tell me that you don’t have at least a plan after just _giving_ the Space Stone to Thanos.”

 

Loki shuffled his feet. Thor raised his head again, his eye dull and glassy. Hopeless. “You don’t have a plan.”

 

“I _had_ a plan,” Loki corrected hastily. “I just hadn’t counted on…” He made a vague gesture towards Thor, still crumpled (helpless) on the ground.

 

“You thought it would be you?” Thor asked. His voice was growing higher, louder, and Loki knew that if he didn’t slow down soon, he’d end up either vomiting or passing out. At least if he fell unconscious then Loki would have some time to figure out what to do.

 

“Or you thought that Thanos would let you off? What, are you siding with him?”

  
  
This was devolving. Terribly. “Thor, you’ve got it all backwards—”

  
  
“Have I? I thought I just saw you _handing the Tesseract to Thanos.”_

 

“That wasn’t my choice—” Loki started, then stopped. He took a deep breath. “Thor, we are here, and we just have to… we have to cope. So why don’t we start by getting you away from the door. I can help you—”

 

“So you can stab me in the back again?” Thor muttered dully.

 

“Oh, for the love of… Thor, were you so blinded that you couldn’t see me _helping?”_

 

“How,” Thor breathed out, and yes, he definitely looked perhaps three seconds from passing out. “How was that helping.”

 

And then, of course, because Loki’s brother was a colossal idiot and despite every warning that his body had given him, Thor tried to get up.

 

“Thor, don’t get up, you’ll just make it worse—”

 

But of course, Thor did it anyway.

 

He found a grip on the door and pulled himself up, staggering slightly and using the wall as a support. He seemed to search for a grip to attempt to pull the cell open, but after his fingers fumbled at the seam of the door, he couldn’t seem to get a decent grip. In his sheer frustration, Thor’s knuckles sparked with energy. So he was still able to summon his lightning.

 

Thor choked and then stumbled. His knees hit the floor with a sharp _crack,_ and Loki winced as Thor’s hands went back up to his head. Maybe not, then.

 

Loki rolled his eyes. If his brother was determined to be this obtuse… “All right,” He said, striding forwards and deliberately paying no mind to the futile attempt to move away. “You need to stop. When they come back—”

 

“When you summon them?” Thor hissed, voice still hoarse.

 

“Thor!” Loki thundered loud enough to make Thor wince; but Loki had to get his point across before Thor hurt himself even more. “In case you were too busy to notice, Thanos’s men were going to _kill_ me, almost as certainly as they were going to kill all of us until they realized who were are. You truly think I would betray you so easily?”

 

Thor gave him a _Look_ the best he could with one glazed-over eye; to his credit, he did a pretty good job of it.

 

“Fine,” Loki allowed. “Fine, I’ve done it a lot, but this time is different. I hate this place more than you can imagine—”

 

“So _why?”_ Thor demanded hotly.

 

Something sank deep in Loki’s belly, and he knew that he couldn’t lie.  “Because,” Loki said quietly. “I couldn’t watch him hurt you anymore.”

 

Thor was silent for a long time, eye closed and head braced against his forearms. Loki didn’t move a muscle. He suddenly regretted saying anything at all. Finally, Thor heaved a sigh and spoke. “I mucked that up, didn’t I?”

 

Loki smirked, feeling relief replace the dread curdling in his gut. “Just a bit. It’s not exactly your fault. It’s what you’ve come to expect.”

 

Thor shook his head, even though he had to know that Loki was right. “No, it’s not. That wasn’t fair. I made you come here, and I blamed you for—”

 

“Don’t,” Loki interrupted hastily (maybe too quickly). “Don’t do that. It wasn’t—that wasn’t—just stop.”

 

Thor managed to pull himself into a sitting position, and even though he wavered and needed to brace himself, Loki was impressed nonetheless. He gave Loki an appraising look with his lone, half-closed eye. “You’re sure that we can’t get out of here?”

 

“Positive,” Loki said resignedly. “We’ll have to wait for someone else on the outside. But frankly, you have to save your strength. Can you stand?”

  
  
“You just told me _not_ to stand.”

  
  
“Well, I take that back.”

  
  
“Oh, really.”

  
  
Loki aimed a look at Thor, who sighed and shifted his weight. “I think I’ll fall down,” He confessed, but Loki still made no move to help him up. Thor huffed out a sigh, sounding almost amused, but then thunked his head back onto the cracked floor.

 

Loki tapped his foot, pretending that this wasn’t a test of just how far Thor’s endurance could stretch (how far he could bend before he broke). A new wave of pain seemed to crash over his brother, and he went to clutch at his temples again and let out a muffled groan. He lay there, panting, wheezing, for several moments before he seemed to cave. “Fine,” He breathed out, his voice gravelly and weak. “Help me?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor gets left alone with Thanos and/or Loki for extended periods of time. It doesn't go well. 
> 
> WARNING: Mentions/referenced psychological/physical torture in this chapter.
> 
> WARNING: Slight Infinity War spoilers. Very, very slight. Very.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for short chapter. Longer one will be up soon. 
> 
> Disclaimer on chapter 1.

On the twenty-sixth day, Thor stopped fighting.

 

Now, when the guards came in, he shakily rose to his feet, subtly aided by Loki's hand on his back, and allowed them to roughly pull him out of the cell. And now, when Thor was thrown back in the cell, memories jumbled or missing and half-delirious, sometimes bleeding from deep wounds along his back and arms, Loki was there to catch him.

 

 _Oh, how far you have fallen,_ Loki thought bitterly to himself once as he caught Thor before he pitched face-first into the ground. The  _Statesman_ was where Thanos had turned his jealousy towards Thor into hatred. It was almost ironic that this time, it seemed to be undoing its hard work.

 

On the forty-fourth day, Thor stopped talking.

 

Now, as Thor sat there in silence, hardly moving, hardly eating, Loki did his best to fill the silence with meaningless chatter, of the worlds he’d seen as he’d fallen through the Bifrost, the civilizations, the people. He spoke of their childhood, of sneaking into the kitchen to steal sweet rolls and Heimdall letting them slip by, of sparring when they were young and the time that Loki had knocked Thor down (it didn’t happen often). When he told those stories, he liked to think that Thor's fractured mind mended a little.

 

Every time Thor was tossed back into the cell, Loki tried to piece his mind back together—fill the gaps Thanos had ripped, mend the tears, but the damage was too deep, Loki’s magic was spread too thin for him to put Thor’s mind back together again fully. Loki had experience healing minds from Thanos’s magic–he’d done it himself, on several occasions, but Thanos was much rougher, much harsher with Thor than he ever had been with Loki. And it grew worse every day.

 

On the seventy-fifth day, Thor forgot the Avengers.

 

 

Thor was thrown into the cell earlier than usual, muttering about iron and shields and birds and spiders. They were the first words he’d spoken in weeks, and Loki was, at first, pleasantly surprised. His brother was talking again. That had to be good, right?

 

Wrong.

 

Thor looked up at him, his one-eyed gaze fractured and confused more than usual. “Loki,” He croaked, the first words he’d spoken to Loki in weeks. “Do I know—do I know Terrans?”

 

That’s when Loki knew. He swallowed hard and stepped forwards towards Thor, who was on his hands and knees. He pressed his fingers to Thor’s forehead and pressed his _seidr_ into his brother’s mind. What he found was... terrible.

 

There was a significant chunk of Thor’s memories missing–not just jumbled or fractured, but torn out altogether. The past few years–Thor’s adventures with the Avengers, Jane Foster, Loki’s invasion. There were only vague inklings left in Thor’s mind—of iron and circular shields, the color red and birds of prey. The edges of the memories–his banishment, Hela’s release, were blurry and indistinct, but still present. Thanos would have no reason to get rid of them, as all they did was prove Odin’s apparent negligence.

 

“Yes,” Loki said in answer to Thor’s question. “Yes, you do.”

  
  
He didn’t elaborate. Thor tried to move so he sat normally, but wobbled and nearly fell. “Why can’t I remember?”

  
  
Loki sighed unhappily, and didn’t elaborate further than, “Because he doesn’t want you to.”

 

And now, Loki knew Thanos’s plan.

 

On the one hundred-seventh day, Thor cracked.

 

The past few days, Thor had been returning earlier and earlier, and Loki was aware of what was coming. It was inevitable–Thor had lasted longer than all of Thanos’s previous champions, Loki knew, and the Titan grew impatient. The physical wounds grew deeper, the mental more widespread. More often than not, Thor arrived with lashes on his back, burns on his arms, and his mind in further disarray. Until finally, he never returned.

 

Loki sat in his cell for days, now with no distractions from his thoughts. What was happening to Thor, to Asgard? When was Thanos going to come for him?

 

Sometimes, when he felt especially lonely, his mind would flash back to his first time on this ship–of screams and flashes, torn minds and broken bodies—

 

But then he’d push those thoughts away and force his attention on escaping this damned cell, even though he knew it was pointless, because he’d been here for months on end with no progress.

 

Then Thanos summoned Loki to the throne room.

 

The Mad Titan was sitting facing away from Loki, towards the giant window that faced the galaxy. Loki’s veins thrummed with fear as he recognized the planet in the near distance. It was Earth.

 

His men were standing in the shadows. Loki recognized Proxima and Ebony Maw, and Proxima gave him an evil smile. God, Loki hated Thanos’s Black Order. At least his sadistic daughters were gone.

 

But then Loki forgot all about Proxima, because Thor stepped out of the shadows.

 

At first glance, his brother looked the same. The eyepatch, the red cape that remained torn off one shoulder, the short-cropped hair. The changes were minute and slight, but significant. That teal shoulder-plate, the one that the Sakaarans had added on to make him look more exotic in the ring, was stamped with a bright red fist—the Infinity Gauntlet. Thanos's symbol. The cloth of his armor had been dyed darker, changing from a dull green to a dark gray. Thor’s one-eyed gaze was cloudy and darkened, shadowed by the dim lighting of Earth’s one sun and Thor’s angled-down head, making him look too ominous for Loki’s liking.

 

Thanos had broken his mind. Permanently, Loki wasn’t so sure. Couldn't be so sure. Wouldn't let himself. 

 

“I had hoped to have two champions by the time we reached Earth.” Thanos rumbled, startling Loki and ripping his attention away from his brother. Thanos was still facing away, but Loki felt a chill run through him as he saw the speed with which they were approaching Earth. The Avengers would have little to no warning at all.

 

“But your brother was more stubborn than anticipated. I only have time for one.” Thanos swiveled in his chair, Infinity Gauntlet already on his hand, the Power Stone and the Space Stone glowing from their confinement. “You will accompany me, of course, on my conquest of Terra. Perhaps the humans will use you as target practice.”

 

A robotic voice blasted out from the ceiling, cutting off whatever Loki’s response might have been. “Landing, T-minus two minutes.”

 

Thanos inclined his head and rose from his chair. He nodded at Proxima, who smirked and stepped forwards, pointing her spear towards Loki. She seized his arms and pulled them behind his back, angling the tip of her spear to Loki’s neck.

 

Thanos smiled. It was ugly and cruel, and spoke of destroyed worlds, systems bathed in blood, all for the purpose of acquiring the Infinity Stones. “I suppose I must prepare for our hosts. Champion,” He continued, and Thor’s hard gaze lifted to Thanos. “You will accompany me. Proxima, come.”

 

Loki was shoved after Thanos, down winding halls that he’d never seen, until the ship shuddered and he knew that they’d reached the surface. They stopped at a set of giant bay doors, and Thanos stepped backwards, gesturing for Proxima and Thor to step up. Thanos’s daughter shoved Loki towards the doors, and Loki heard a faint, “Hey, giant alien spaceship! Why don’t you come out and say hi?”

 

Tony Stark, better known as Iron Man. Thor’s expression contorted with anger and his arms sparked with electricity, but he didn’t light himself up. Yet.

 

The planet was doomed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments much appreciated :)  
> they make my day
> 
> Yes, I know this is short, by the way. There's a few longer ones coming up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, Tony Stark has no time of day anymore. Thor picked a hell of a time to show up.
> 
> And Loki. What's wrong with Tony's life now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's getting intense...
> 
> enjoy!

Tony Stark _really_ didn’t have time for this.

 

With Ross breathing down his neck, a teenage vigilante in a suit with STARK written all over it, and juggling SI meetings without being able to talk to Pepper, Tony was completely overwhelmed.

 

Why did the spaceship have to pick the middle of Central Park as a prime place to land? What was wrong with Tallahassee? Or Detroit?

 

Vision was by his flank, and Tony was enclosed in his suit, which he was surprised hadn’t blown up yet due to the amount of calls that Ross had pushed through to his interface. But as he waited for the doors to open, Natasha Romanov slipped up to his side silently, giving no indication of where she’d come from or where she’d been. A cheerful, “Hey, Mr. Stark!” had him turning around to face overly large white eyes and a red mask.

 

“Peter.” Tony said exasperatedly, keeping one eye on the motionless giant spaceship. “Go home. You’re the friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man, not the crazy, alien-fighting Spider-Man.”

  
  
“But Mr. Stark,” Peter whined, the suit’s eyes contracting and widening. “I wanna help!”

 

Before Tony could say anything else in response, the huge doors to the ship rumbled and began to grind open. “Hey, Vision,” Tony hissed. “Go around the back. See if there are any other sneak-entrances.”

 

Without a word, the red man flew off. The doors were halfway open, and Natasha took a step in front of Peter. She still hadn’t spoken a word, but she met Tony’s eyes and inclined her head. Tony’s mask folded over his face. “Stay behind me.” He told Peter.

 

The doors fully opened with a _clang_ , but the inside of the ship was so dark that Tony couldn’t see anything inside. “FRIDAY, schematics.”

 

“I dunno, boss.” FRIDAY’s peculiar voice came through his helmet. “My scanners are all thrown off by the readings this ship’s giving off.”

 

There was a shuffling sound from inside the ship, and Tony activated his repulsors. He raised his palms, Peter got into a fighting stance, and Natasha shifted her feet subtly and reached for the knives at her sides.

 

Then Thor stepped out of the darkness.

 

Despite the fact that most of his features were still shadowed, the red cape and armor was unmistakable. The whine of Tony’s repulsors died and he lowered his hands. He could see Natasha relax, slipping into a more comfortable position, and Peter stood up straight.

 

“Thor,” Tony said, taking a step forwards. “What’s going–”

 

Thor’s head jerked sharply to the right, and Tony got a glimpse of the changes that Thor had gone through. His hair was shorn short, his armor different and cape torn off on one shoulder. His hammer wasn’t anywhere in sight, and he had an _eyepatch over his right eye_.

 

It soon became clear where Thor was looking, as Loki emerged behind him, looking considerably more stressed than Thor was. The god of mischief stepped farther forwards, revealing a spear pointed directly at his neck. The veins on his neck stood out as he glared forcefully at whomever was behind him, then directly at Tony.

 

The blood drained out of his face, but Tony wasn’t paying attention to Loki anymore.

 

“Hey, Point Break,” Tony said again, making his suit project his voice louder. “What’s happening, dude?”

  
  
Tony expected a retort in the peculiar accent in a Shakespearean fashion, but Thor’s head only turned back towards Tony in a manner that was unlike the Asgardian. Tony felt a knot build in his stomach as he noted the unfocused look in his friend’s eyes, how his fists were clenched, the half-healed marks on his arms. Tony could see Natasha shift beside him, her body growing coiled and tense.

 

“Thor!” Natasha yelled out, voice cold and sharp.

 

“Hey, Mr. Stark?” Peter asked, but Tony ignored him. “Not now, Peter.”

 

Thor looked behind him and seemed to hear something, for he turned back, gaze hard. He took one step closer, then another.

 

“Mr. Stark!” Peter said more insistently, pulling on Tony’s arm like a child trying to get a parent’s attention. “Look–look at Loki!”

 

Tony reluctantly directed his gaze towards the god of trickery, not exactly convinced that Loki had any current relevance, unless he was mind-controlling Thor without his magic stick, which wasn’t exactly likely. But when Tony looked at Loki, the Asgardian was wide-eyed and desperate, mouthing over and over, _Run._

 

When he realized that Tony was looking at him, he looked pointedly at Thor, who was still slowly advancing down the ramp, then mouthed again, _Run!_

 

The alien holding Loki cackled as it seemed to hear something from behind it and shoved Loki forwards. Thor also seemed to acknowledge it and stopped walking for a moment before closing his eye.

 

“Uh… Mr. Stark? What’s Mr... uh, Thor doing?” Peter asked tentatively, his eyes narrowing.

 

“Not sure, kid.”

 

Thor’s body hummed, then his eye shot open and glowed with white light. He glared at Tony and charged towards the Avengers, body wreathed in lightning.

 

“Shit!” Tony yelped, throwing himself in front of Peter and Natasha and shooting a repulsive blast at his friend. “What the hell?”

 

Thor snarled and lunged, hands manipulating the lightning and reaching out for Tony. The Iron Man suit absorbed the blast, but his HUD flickered and FRIDAY’s voice grew garbled.

 

“Thor!” Natasha shouted again, knives unsheathed, but she was clearly reluctant to use them. “What are you doing?”

 

The alien holding Loki cackled again. “Obeying!”

 

Tony didn’t want to know why he could understand it, but Peter shot a web towards Thor, but when they connected with his skin, they bubbled and hissed, eventually melting off him.

 

Tony activated his repulsors and flew upwards, hoping to get Thor to follow him, but the only thing he earned was a view of Loki head-butting the alien that held him captive and stealing its spear. He slammed it in the head and dropped it, jumping off the ramp onto the ground.

 

He gestured wildly for Tony to come down and join him, and Tony sent a repulsor blast towards Thor, knocking him on his back and buying Peter and Natasha a few seconds to spring clear of the furious thunder god.

 

“What’s wrong with him?” Tony demanded the moment he set down next to Loki. The trickster looked disheveled and grimy, but Tony didn’t care, because his _friend_ was down there, fighting his other friend and his kid, and there was absolutely _no_ reason to.

 

Loki shook his head. “He–he’s locked out of his head. It was–”

  
  
Thor got back up just as a flood of aliens came off the ship, wielding guns and looking way too much like–

 

“Chitauri?” Loki groaned. “I thought Thanos disposed of them ages ago.”

  
  
Thor didn’t intermingle with the Chitauri at all, instead, he focused all his attention on Tony and Loki. “Okay, new plan.” Tony said, checking his power readouts. “How do we snap him out of it?”

  
  
Loki’s form shimmered with green light, and then he was dressed in green robes and wielding twin daggers. “You can’t.”

 

“What do you mean, we _can’t_?” Tony demanded, aiming a low-powered repulsor blast at Thor, hoping to dissuade him without actually hurting him.

 

“Thanos broke his mind!” Loki snapped. “And maybe if you imbeciles had paid more attention to your so-called _friends_ , we wouldn’t have been trapped for _months_ on that godforsaken ship!”

 

That gave Tony pause, but he had no time to say anything to Loki, because Thor was on them again. Loki pushed him out of the way (how’d the guy move a solid suit of armor out of the way so easily?) and crouched, daggers in hand.

 

“Loki, no–!” Tony started as Thor charged forwards. As soon as the lightning on Thor’s body made contact with Loki, his form shimmered. Thor charged straight through Loki into the solid metal wall of the spaceship. He went down hard and his lightning flickered out.

 

Loki, from his true position a few paces behind Tony, angled his head towards the two spider-monikered superheroes, who were attempting to fight off a whole squad of Chitauri by themselves. “You may want to help your comrades.”

 

Tony blasted a few Chitauri aside, but there were hardly any left by now. “I think they’ve got it covered.”

 

He glanced back at Thor, who was shaking his head and bracing his elbows against the ground, as though he was shaking off a wave of dizziness. He raised his head and looked up at Tony and Loki. His gaze was cloudy and dazed, but not shut-off and broken as before. He shook his head again, then squinted and spoke for the first time (that Tony had heard) in two years. “I know you.”

 

And, _man_ , that pulled on Tony’s heartstrings. Years ago, Thor had once announced to the general group that, with the Avengers, he’d had some of the best experiences he’d had in centuries. That had really made Tony think. Sure, Tony called him funny names and occasionally made fun of his Old English accent, but he’d never really grasped the concept that this guy, this relatively normal-looking guy that Tony had befriended, this guy that had absolutely _no_ idea about Earth’s customs or technology, had been living for _millennia_ before Tony was even born.

 

Thor had been old when Jesus Christ was born. When the Roman Empire fell. During the Bubonic Plague, the Revolutionary War. Hell, Tony called Steve an old man, but in reality, Thor’s lifespan was longer than all of theirs combined. He’d been having adventures with his friends in the first _century_ , and yet he claimed that his escapades with the Avengers were one of the highlights of his entire life.

 

But now, this Thanos guy (what kind of name is Thanos, anyway?) had taken _all_ of that away from Thor. Thousands of years of experiences, of laughing with Tony and play-fighting with the Hulk, eating ice cream with Steve and Clint and sparring with Natasha. All of it.

 

Loki’s jaw tightened and he stepped forwards, towards Thor, but a shriek of rage made the Asgardian flinch back by reflex. The alien that had been holding Loki had risen to its feet, and it jumped off the ramp with its spear in hand. Thor was clearly still out of it, as when it grabbed him by the place where his cape connected to his shoulder, he barely fought. It pulled him upwards and dragged him towards the door, grumbling about “Cursed Aesir,” and “Rushed reconditioning.”

 

“ _Proxima_ !” Loki snapped, taking rapid steps forward. “Put him _down_. Now.”

 

“Uh-oh.” The alien, apparently named Proxima, pouted mockingly. “Is my Father going to have to get you back, too? Maybe he’ll finally put you in your _place_.” It hefted its spear and grinned ferally. “C’mon, now, Loki. He’ll be pleased to see you’ve stayed.”

 

The blood drained from Loki’s face, and Tony lifted his hands. Natasha kicked one last Chitauri down and Peter webbed it to the wall of the spaceship. “All right, there, Kal-El.” Tony said to the alien. “Let’s just relax for a second–”

 

It shot off an energy blast from its spear, and Loki put up a shimmering green shield that obscured them from view. Tony caught a glimpse of Peter, with his superior strength, shoving Natasha to the ground. There was a massive roar and a whoosh of air.

 

By the time Loki dropped the shield, the spaceship was gone. Vision flew up from where he’d taken cover behind an outcropping of rock, a perplexed look on his face.

 

“Well,” Tony said, surveying the wrecked remains of Central Park and the assassin, the Spiderling, the artificial dude, and the immortal trickster that he was left with. “Shit.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony's calling in the cavalry. From what he's heard, he's gonna need all the help he can get.

Yeah, Tony knew they were absolutely, totally screwed up their asses if he didn’t call in a buttload of favors. Like, so many it should be illegal. 

Doctor Strange found him first. A circle of sparks had situated itself right under his feet in his workshop, and Tony felt himself fall into a leather chair across from a man that he recognized.

“Stephen-freaking-Strange.” Tony shook his head, unconsciously touching the place where his arc reactor had been. “I thought you’d dropped off the grid. Because of the, uh, you know.” Tony wiggled his fingers for emphasis.

Strange was dressed up in wizard clothes, complete with the red robe with the high collar. He angled his head at Tony. “Tony Stark. I hear you were at a spaceship yesterday.”

Tony made a noncommittal sound. “Sorry you missed it.”

“See, Stark, I have a duty to protect this earth from otherworldly threats. I’ve already talked to Thor Odinson recently, after he brought his brother to this planet. He promised that, after I found his father, he’d leave with his magical brother. Then, lo and behold, you show up and take Loki with you.”

“Well, day’s not over yet.” Tony made a hold on gesture. “But back up a second. So… you, Stephen Strange, arguably the former best neurosurgeon in the world, have squandered your wealth and become the magical wizard guardian of the Earth? I gotta warn you, it’s a shitty job.”

And yes, Tony was still mad that Strange had turned down his request for him to operate on Rhodey. Strange only smirked. “Something like that. But that’s not why you’re here, Stark.”

Tony fiddled with his wristwatch idly. “Yeah, I know, I brought Loki back to my Tower and I wasn’t supposed to, Mommy, don’t get me in trouble! Don’t tell Daddy!”

Strange ignored him. “Your loyalty to Ross puts my Sanctums at risk, but I don’t have a choice here. I told Thor when he came here that he would have to leave as soon as possible, and bring his brother back to Asgard with him. He failed.”

“Hold on a damn minute.” Tony snapped, crossing his arms over his chest piece. “Thor’s a friend of mine. And an Avenger.”

“I don’t recall him signing the Accords.” Strange retorted, and Tony felt the heat of anger starting to rise in him. 

“I don’t recall him being from Earth. Therefore, he doesn’t sign.”

“It doesn’t matter. What happened out there?” Strange leaned back in his chair, arms folded over his stomach. “Have another spat with your fellow Avenger? Another civil war?”

Tony had to resist the urge to activate his wristwatch repulsor and blast this guy in the face so hard he’d be lacking function in not just his hands. “No, actually. I talked to the Asgardian that you tried to outlaw, and it turns out that he had some helpful information.”

Strange made a go on gesture. “And?”

“Turns out that the spaceship’s owner is Thanos, one of the most powerful beings remaining in the universe. He’s after the six Infinity Stones scattered across the universe, and he’s enslaved Thor to help him track them down. Thor’s had more contact with them than basically anyone in the universe.”

“Infinity Stones?” Strange asked, seemingly intrigued. 

Tony shrugged. “Gems of ultimate power, older than the universe itself. It’s, uh… Space, Reality, Power, Mind, Soul, and Time.”

“Time?” Strange asked, his hand going to an amulet on his chest. Tony studied it for a moment before continuing. 

“Yeah. No one’s seen that one, but I think you can use it to, you know, manipulate time. That’s what Loki seemed to think, anyway.”

Strange looked like he wanted to say something, but refrained. “Well, what else did our apparent informant say?”

Tony shrugged. “He didn’t specify what had happened, but he mentioned an attack on his planet and Asgardians trapped on Thanos’s ship. And–” His breath caught on this–he hadn’t believed it at first. “And Bruce Banner.”

Strange raised an eyebrow. “Bruce Banner, as in the Hulk Bruce Banner?”

“The same.” Tony sighed. “So now, Thanos, an ultrapowerful alien, has Thor, another ultrapowerful alien on his team. And we’re short one Asgardian, as well as… well, you know, most of the Avengers.”

“So why don’t you call them?” Strange asked, tossing him the same goddamn phone that Steve had given him. “I’ll be waiting downstairs. I assume I’m accompanying you to your Tower.”

“Where the hell did you–” Tony shook his head, deciding he didn’t want to know. “Never mind.”

Tony stared at the phone in his hand, but made no move to call them. Strange watched him look at the phone idly for a few moments before rolling his eyes and making a flicking gesture. The phone appeared in his hands and he clicked the first number that popped up on the screen. The phone was back in Tony’s hands before he could blink, and the ringer was going…

Rogers picked up.

“Dammit, Strange!” Tony yelled, but the sorcerer was gone.

\---

Six hours later, the Avengers were assembled.

Sam, Natasha, and Clint had all arrived at the same time, despite the fact that Tony had called them on such short notice. They’d said something about Steve wrapping something up and meeting them at the Tower. Tony hadn’t commented on Natasha’s sudden disappearance after the battle with Thor, but she gave him a sharp nod and stayed back with Clint and Sam. Wanda showed up an hour later, eyes rounded by eyeliner that resembled her style from Ultron more than her style before the whole ‘civil war, everyone kill each other’ deal. 

Tony had been pretty sure that Peter would have a fanboy-induced stroke. He’d been hissing to Tony the whole time, “That’s Hawkeye! That’s Scarlet Witch!” et cetera.

Loki came upstairs to the roof of the tower five minutes before Steve did. He emerged from the stairs silently and leaned against the wall, smirking at the tension between the two groups on opposite sides of the roof. When Steve arrived, Tony forgot how to breathe for a second.

His feelings for this guy were too complicated to be deciphered in a hundred million years. On the one hand, Steve was the guy that Tony had fought beside for years. Steve had saved his ass more times than Tony could count, and vice versa, too. Steve had lived with him, laughed with him, supported him.

But Bucky Barnes had turned all of that on its head as soon as he showed his stupid masked face. He’d blown up the UN, gotten into Steve’s head so badly that it had torn their whole (albeit fragile) friendship apart. Tony had been trying to keep the Avengers together by signing the Accords, but Steve had been his stubborn-assed self and said no. (Hadn’t the guy been the model American? God, Tony had ruined him). Then Rhodey had gotten hurt and dammit, he hadn’t meant to get them all locked up, but he’d been doing the best he could. And then he’d found out that the Winter Soldier had killed his mom, and–

Okay, Tony will freely admit that he’d probably overreacted a little bit. The whole Accords deal had basically been a huge misunderstanding that he and Steve had decided to solve with fists instead of words. That was a Thor thing to do. (Tony winced internally as he subconsciously made the comparison). But Steve had been in the wrong, too. He should’ve actually respected the Avengers’ and Tony’s positions before recruiting half the team to fight Tony. Plus the fact that Steve’s best (brainwashed, but seriously?) friend had murdered Tony’s mother in cold blood. That seems like something you should tell one of your supposed best friends.

Tony, his best devil-may-care mask firmly in place and hoping his voice didn’t waver or give away his inner war, said, “Cap. Forego a barber while in exile?”

Steve gave him a familiar exasperated stare, seemingly not feeling the same conflict that Tony was. “Stark. Forego your manners while I was gone?”

“Is this really pertinent right now?” Loki demanded, still seeming faintly amused, but he was coiled tight and tense. “Or can we get to the point?”

“What is the point?” Sam demanded, his wing-pack slung across his back as though he was prepared for a quick exit. “Why’d you call us here, Stark? Come to get us arrested?”

“You guys see the news?” Tony asked instead of answering Sam’s question. “Because if you did, you’d probably know.

 

Clint shrugged, his bow slung across his back but strung and ready. “Something about an alien ship and the Avengers. Not something you don’t hear every day.”

Loki made an exasperated noise and his hands flashed with green light. The anguish in his eyes was building–even Tony could see that, and so could Clint, apparently, as he didn’t react as violently to the appearance of Loki’s magic as Tony had thought he would. “The entire universe is in danger!” Loki snapped. “And unless you foolish, short-lived mortals get over your useless spat, your entire world will be wiped out by the Mad Titan.”

Tony winced. There was absolute silence for a moment or two. “You know, Loki,” Tony said. “Maybe you shouldn’t have lead with that.”

“What the hell, Stark?” Sam demanded. Natasha and Steve remained silent, but their body language was tense. “What did you get us into?”

“Nothing!” Tony hissed hotly. “Now hold your feathery ass for one moment, because technically, it was Reindeer Games over there and Thor that got us into this mess.”

Loki stepped forwards away from the wall, eyes aflame. “Excuse you, mortal.” He hissed. “If my brother hadn’t been caught up in your affairs in the first place, he never would’ve–”

 

“I’m sorry, who was it who came to Earth with the goal of taking over the entire planet?” Clint snapped hotly. 

“You don’t understand–” Loki’s voice caught and he took a deep breath. The green light flared around his hands again as he flexed his fingers. “We were trapped there for months. And you Avengers, Thor’s friends, his allies who were supposed to be looking out for him, were squabbling like children.”

Loki’s eyes shifted from hard anger to a mix of reminiscing and horror. “We were trapped there for months.” He repeated. “And I was stuck in that prison, my magic tied down, and the only thing I could do was wait for my brother to be tossed back into the cell, his mind shattered, his body broken. He didn’t even remember who he was by the end,” Loki spat, his voice uneven, and Tony’s gut twisted into knots. He hadn’t gotten this part of the story. 

“He asked me who the Avengers were. Did he know them?” Loki snapped, and Steve made a sound like he’d been punched in the gut. Tony didn’t feel much better. “Who was his father? Had his mother truly been slaughtered by a Svartalf? Was I his brother? What was Asgard? Was it a place? A people?

“And all of this could’ve been avoided, Avengers,” Loki hissed, the name like a poison on his tongue, “If you’d simply sent him a note. Hey, Thor, how you doing?” Loki mocked. Wanda’s eyes were a dull crimson and glowed hotly enough to rival the sun. Natasha looked perturbed, which meant that she was absolutely seething on the inside. Clint looked furious enough to decapitate anything in sight, and Sam, despite not even knowing Thor, looked ready to help. And Steve–well, Steve’s bearded face looked murderous enough to wipe out the entire alien population. 

Tony agreed with him on that. 

“We hope you’re doing all right,” Loki continued, deepening his voice into a bad mockery of Captain America’s. “Just send us a quick note back. Love, the Avengers. So now,” Loki said, voice a bit thready, “Because of your petty squabble, my brother is enslaved by the cruelest creature in the universe. And he is setting out to burn this planet to the ground. All because you didn’t know what he was doing. You could have helped him. You could have saved him.”

The amount of guilt swimming in the air around the Tower was enough to fill the entire Pacific Ocean. Hell, Tony’s own was enough to make him choke on it. Natasha set her jaw. “Let’s get down to business, then.”

—

Loki gave the Avengers the same vague rundown that he’d given Tony earlier in the day with something about an ancient being and a fight, but only went into any sort of detail until Steve asked about potential Asgardian aid. Loki became a mix of angry and sad when he snapped that Asgard was destroyed. 

“As in, the buildings are smoldering wrecks, or the city is razed, or…?” 

Loki looked irritated enough to raze the entire Earth to the ground, but he relented and answered. “As in if you even attempt to get near Asgard, you’ll be met by quite a large asteroid field. Maybe even a few chunks of gold and other Asgardian relics. I doubt those would be helpful, though.”

Tony winced. Loki hadn’t been clear about the fate of Asgard, but now, Tony pitied the alien race even more. Especially Thor–dammit, he didn’t even have a proper home anymore. And with this whole Accords mess, would he even be allowed to stay on Earth? 

Nah, Tony would make sure he would. Ross could shove any complaints he had up his ass if they even had a hint of the words ‘Thor’ or ‘Asgard.’ 

By the time Loki explained that Bruce Banner was also trapped on Thanos’ ship, as well as the remaining population of Asgard, the Avengers were unanimous. “So, Clint said, a hint of dark amusement on his face. “When do we leave?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Man, Steve can't wait until this mission is over. Then he can start avoiding Tony again, and maybe Loki will stop being so weird and caring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all. Sorry that I waited a few days to post this... I unfortunately have no more chapters on backlog, so it may be a few days. Sorry :(
> 
> On another note, I saw Infinity War.  
> (And died. holy crap).
> 
> For the benefit of those who haven't seen it, please try your best to avoid spoilers in the comments. Thanks :).

The plan was simple.

 

Tony left Ross a message at a time when he knew that he was in a UN Security Council meeting, so he wouldn’t be able to respond unless he told the world leaders to hang on for a moment while he took a phone call. Tony told the government official that he was dealing with a personal matter and he wouldn’t be available for a few days.

 

Technically, it was a personal matter, because Thor was his friend long before Ross gained jurisdiction over him. He just didn’t mention that it was also a personal matter to the disgraced Avengers and a pissed-off trickster god.

 

They decided that their heavy hitters (minus Vision, because it would be stupid to bring a guy with an Infinity Stone in his freaking forehead into the ship of a being that was chasing Infinity Stones) would sneak onto Thanos’s ship to free Thor and rescue the Asgardians, plus Bruce Banner.

 

So Tony, Wanda, Doctor Strange (who had showed up midway through a conversation between Tony and Vision with no explanations other than _I’m coming with you_ ), Loki, and Steve (he’d insisted, despite him being squishier than the rest of them) would be sneaking onto Thanos’s ship, where, after picking up Thor, Strange would create a portal straight into Stark Tower.

 

The rest of the Avengers, including Peter, who had refused to go home after popping up back at the Tower (“I wanna help, Mr. Stark!”) would be causing a distraction outside the ship. Sam and Rhodey would be flying around a safe distance from the ship, Natasha and Peter would be on the ground, Clint would be perched on a nearby rooftop, and Vision would be on standby, and _only_ in case of emergency would he come out to help.

 

Their only problem was that they had no way of drawing the spaceship to the ground. The idea of teleporting up to the ship was quickly rejected, because if Strange and Loki were incapacitated, they would have no way off the giant spaceship. Wanda had an idea of her pulling it down from wherever it was, but she would have no idea where it was and the sight of her magic might alert the UN and get them all arrested.

 

Eventually, they decided that the only way to draw him down was with the sight of the Mind Stone. Wanda, desperate to keep Vision safe, demanded to know whether or not Thanos would even bother come down in order to get it. Loki immediately shook his head. “He will take any chance he can to get that stone.” He said. “The Mind Stone was one of his most valuable possessions and he was absolutely livid when I lost it. He wants it back as soon as possible, especially with this seemingly backwater planet with all these enhanced peoples taking it.”

 

“All right,” Steve said, clapping his hands together. “We’ll head out tomorrow at noon. I suggest you all get some rest.”

 

Tony glanced at the clock in surprise, deciding to ignore Steve’s assertion of authority. Jesus Christ. It was almost one in the morning. The Avengers broke from around the conference table, presumably headed off to their old rooms that Tony hadn’t had the heart to remodel. Loki eyed Wanda curiously for a moment, then jerked his head for her to join him. “Maximoff,” he said. “Come here a moment.”

 

Warily, she stalked over to him. Loki said something to her quietly, and she shook her head. After a few more moments of conversation, Loki held out his hand and green light formed a ball on top of his palm. Wanda mimicked him, her volatile scarlet magic pulsing above her hand.

 

Loki studied it for a moment before nodding and gesturing for her to come with him. They disappeared into the tower.

 

“Stark.” A gruff but decidedly feminine voice cut in. Tony turned and faced Natasha, a smirk on his face (his most cultivated mask). She eyed him for a moment, seemingly not convinced by his game face. “You all right?”

 

“Course. Just focused on getting our resident god back before he destroys the universe.”

 

Natasha raised a well-groomed eyebrow. “And there’s nothing personal about this? You know you don’t have to stick with Steve, right? Or Wanda, for that matter. You can stay on the ground with us.”

 

“So he’s Steve now? And I’m Stark?” Tony demanded hotly. “There’s nothing personal about this. I’m just worried about my friend. Unlike some people were worried about _their_ friends recently.”

 

Natasha sighed. “That wasn’t the reason, Stark, and you know it.”

 

“I wasn’t talking about you.” Tony snapped.

 

Natasha gave him The Look. “Neither was I. Rogers spent a lot of his waking hours being tested and experimented on, and he knew, on some level, that if he was under government control, that it would happen again.” She pulled a face. “He didn’t want that to happen to anyone else, Stark, you’ve got to understand that.”

 

“I _know_ !” Tony snapped. “You think that I don’t know? How do you think Steve got them out of the Raft so easily? You know, Ross’s high-security prison built for superhumans? Why do you think that the Raft decided to run an hour-long system restart _by itself_ the precise moment that Steve broke in?”

 

And as Tony stormed out of the room, he caught a glimpse of Steve standing in the opposite hall, an indecipherable look on his face.

 

\---

 

The night before the mission, Steve hardly slept.

 

At five, he gave up on sleeping and went on his morning jog that Sam still called a sprint, arrived back at the tower at seven, and stood in the shower until past eight. He got dressed, glances at his bearded reflection in the mirror, and arrived in the Common Room at nine.

 

Clint, Wanda and Rhodey were already there, the military man seemingly comfortable sitting with the rogues, with the two men playing cards and Wanda sitting across from them, weaving scarlet tendrils along her fingers. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, and when it pulsed outwards, disrupting the card game, she cursed in Sokovian and angrily reset the boys’ cards without looking up. From the bemused look on Clint’s face, this wasn’t the first time that it had happened.

 

“Practicing?” Steve asked as he came in. Further examination of the room revealed Sam making coffee in the kitchen and Loki standing against the wall, studying Wanda’s magic with a frown.

 

Wanda shrugged. “He thinks my magic is too volatile. He wants me to work on control.”

 

“Loki?” Steve guessed, and Wanda nodded confirmation. “Why?”

 

“So we have an actual chance from escaping the _Homestead_ with our lives. And Thor.” Loki told him as though it were obvious. “Besides, she possesses a bastardized version of my magic, as well as the Stone’s. It would be inappropriate for her to have no training.”

 

Clint made a _what can you do_ face. Steve could relate.

 

Sam came out of the kitchen into the room and nodded cheerily at Steve. He plopped down next to Rhodey (there didn’t seem to be any hard feelings there, so Steve wondered when _that_ conversation had happened) and took a gulp of coffee.

 

“When should we start getting ready?” He asked between sips. “You or Stark got any timeline?”

 

“Your Captain said noon.” Loki said. “I would suggest giving yourselves extra time, as the guard changes at approximately one o’clock in Eastern Earthen time. Being ready as soon as possible will drastically increase our probability of success.”

 

Rhodey checked his watch. “Well, since it’s… 9:57 in the morning, why don’t you regale us with the story of how Asgard was destroyed and how your people ended up on a giant death ship?”

 

“Why don’t you regale me with the tale of how one puny mortal with the brains of a _draugr_ managed to split a superhero team in half like a piece of flimsy paper?” Loki retorted.

 

“I asked you first.”

 

“But it’s not my story to tell.” Loki snapped. “It’s Thor’s.”

 

Wanda let the red tendrils around her fingers fade. “But you were there, weren’t you? It is your story.”

 

“Sure, I was there. But Thor lived it. I was just a spectator when he was–” His jaw tightened and he restarted his sentence. “It’s not something I should be telling. I wasn’t present for a lot of it, anyways.”

 

Steve shot them a _drop it_ look, even though he was curious as well. Natasha took that moment to walk in with that peculiar sway of her hips. “Hello, boys,” she said. “And Wanda. Ready to go soon?”

 

Rhodey shrugged. “Vision is on his way to pick up the Spider-kid right now. They’ll be here by 10:30, and in the meantime, we should get suited up.”

 

Sam groaned. “And I _just_ got my coffee.”

 

\---

 

The uniform that Princess Shuri had provided Steve with was top-of-the-line, but the shields just weren’t the same. They were good for close-up defense, but it couldn’t be used as an offensive weapon like his old one. It wasn’t the same.

 

Tony approached him with no expression on his face and handed him his shield  with absolutely no preamble. “This better work, Cap,” Tony told him. “We’re risking mass genocide here. No, not even genocide. Full-on extinction, of Thor’s home. And last I checked, he didn’t pick sides.”

 

“Stark—” Steve tried, but the billionaire was already gone.

 

Clint, the only one left in the armory with Steve, asked, “He still bitter about that?”

 

Steve heaved a sigh of defeat. “Yeah.”

 

Clint clapped him on the back as he adjusted his bow and started to leave the room. “He’ll get over it. You’ll see.”

  
  
“But how long will it take?” Steve asked the empty room.

 

Steve wished that Tony would invent a time machine so he could go back in time and punch both himself and Tony enough times that they’d both come to their senses. He had been blinded by his friendship with Bucky and his rage with Tony’s support of the Accords. Admittedly, it had made him do some pretty bad stuff. And yes, Steve probably should’ve told Tony that the Winter Soldier had killed his parents.

 

(Like that hadn’t been difficult for Steve, too? Howard had been his friend, and to see Bucky murdering both him and his wife had put a permanent knot in his stomach.)

 

But how does one go about that? _Hey, Tony. You know Bucky? My best friend that I thought died, then didn’t, and I went on a crusade to find? Yeah, turns out he murdered your parents. On another note, can he have some rooms in the Tower?_

 

Not exactly the best strategy.

 

Steve heard FRIDAY come over the speakers, saying something about meeting on the conference floor in full uniform in T-minus five minutes. “Steve?” He heard a voice ask, and he turned towards the door. Sam was standing in the doorway, his wingpack on his shoulders and a concerned look on his face. “You headed up? We’re about to get started.”

 

“Yeah,” Steve said, taking one more glance around the mostly empty room. “Yeah.”

 

\---

 

“This is the _Homestead_.” Loki said, gesturing to the empty air above the table that they were seated around.

 

Tony raised an eyebrow. “No, that’s empty space.”

  
  
As he spoke, a shimmering model of a spaceship appeared above the tabletop. It was ominous-looking–dark, ancient, and huge. It turned gently on its spot, allowing the Avengers to see the entire thing.

 

“Never mind.” Tony said, staring at the illusion.

 

Loki didn’t respond to him. “And this,” He waved his hand at the illusion, moving it towards the wall so everyone could see as well as enlarging it. “Is the main entrance, where Thor and Proxima exited and faced you all.” The image rotated and highlighted three hatches on the side of the ship. “These are side entrances that also host escape pods. They’re lightly guarded, as no sane person would attempt to sneak onto a ship inhabited by both Thanos and his Black Order.”

 

“Black Order?” Natasha asked.

 

“Thanos’s elite guard. Proxima Midnight, the alien that held me captive for a few brief moments. Ebony Maw, Cull Obsidian, and Corvus Glaive. They call themselves his children, and they subscribe to his desire to cleanse the universe with the Infinity Stones.But I stray from the point. Now, either I or the amateur–” Strange made an incredulous sound but didn’t argue further, “–can bring us to the ship, but there are wards placed along its hull and Thanos may have upgraded them since the last time I was there. I would assume he knows about the Sorcerer Supremes, so your magic may be prevented. And he knows my magic well.”

 

The image changed to a view of dark hallways and to empty space. “This is the area in front of the hatches. There are guards stationed, but they’re low-level. We’ll sneak past them to Thor’s cell.”

 

“Why can’t Strange just take us straight to his cell?” Wanda asked, idly twisting her magic around her fingers. “Wouldn’t that be faster?”

 

“Not if Thanos is with Thor for reconditioning.” Loki snapped. “So either Thor will be reconditioning with Thanos as we speak, or he’ll already be reconditioned. Either way, we’re in for a fight. We can’t risk alerting him that we’re there.”

  
  
She angled her head in acknowledgement, then glanced at the clock. “Eleven-thirty,” She said. “Shall we move out?”

 

Vision offered her his arm. “We shall.”

 

\---

 

Steve walked around one of the corners of one of the hallways leading to the elevators and nearly turned right around again.

 

Loki was leaning against the wall, his back to Steve, his fingers twitching with green light. For a moment, Steve was afraid that he was relaying all their plans to Thanos before he caught sight of the person standing in front of Loki.

 

It was Thor.

 

Steve immediately realized that it had to be a fake, because this Thor was slightly translucent and far too blank-faced to be real. The real Thor always had an open expression–be it happiness or rage, sadness or jubilation.

 

But if this illusion was what Thor truly looked like… Steve felt a knot of guilt build in his gut.

 

Thor’s outfit had changed–no longer the extravagant, silvery armor that he had worn, but more practical; gray leather, metal reinforcements, and of course the ever-present red cape. His hair was shorn short, hammer no longer present, face covered in burns. And there was a metal eye-patch over his friend’s right eye.

 

Steve’s first thought was, _Tony’s going to have a hell of a time with these pirate jokes._

 

The second was, _Holy shit holy shit that’s Thor but holy_ shit–

 

Steve must have made some indication that he was there, for the other man whirled around and the image flickered and vanished. “What are you doing?” The god hissed, eyes flicking around as though nervous and _embarrassed_.

 

“Is that what he looks like?” Steve blurted out before he could think out a rational response.

 

Loki heaved a sigh. “Yes.”

 

“How did that happen?” Steve managed to choke out. Thor was literally the most powerful guy he knew, and for something that was able to do that to him—

 

“The goddess of death was released with our father’s death.” Loki said. “Thor attempted to stop her.”

 

“And couldn’t?” Steve guessed, dreading the answer. “Is she someone we need to worry about?”

 

“Not unless she survived a molten sword driven straight through her body and then the explosion of the planet she stood upon.” Loki snapped. “Thor defeated her.”

 

Loki flicked his fingers and images appeared in Steve’s head. An old, weathered man with an eyepatch that Steve imagined was Odin dissolving into golden dust. A woman in tattered, black, skin-tight clothing telling them to kneel, catching Mjolnir and shattering it like it was a piece of glass. Being thrown out of the Bifrost and into Sakaar and seeing Thor fight the Hulk wreathed in lightning. Thor arriving back on Asgard missing an eye and glowing with molten electricity.

 

Asgard exploding into a million pieces.

 

Steve stumbled backwards, gasping, and Loki fixed him with a harsh look. “If you tell Thor you saw that,” Loki told him, “You will not live to see the next morning.”

 

“Hey, resident god of mischief, Capsicle,” Tony said over the intercom. “Get your butts to the roof before Wanda has an aneurysm. They’re already in New Jersey. Chop chop!”

 

Steve winced. Loki rolled his eyes and casually grasped Steve’s arm. The soldier had a fleeting moment as all the nerves in his body felt like they were being pulled apart and rearranged, and then they were standing outside on the roof. Steve’s stomach twisted and he almost vomited off the side.

 

Loki eyed him appraisingly. “Tough stomach. Most people I try that with vomit.”

 

“I feel like I just came in at the wrong moment.” Tony announced. Steve jumped and whirled around, realizing that Tony was coming in from the stairwell.

 

He frowned as he noted the new chest piece that he hadn’t noticed under Tony’s various jackets. “New reactor?”

 

Stark shrugged. “Something like that.”

 

Loki raised his hands. “Shall we go before Maximoff leaves without us?”

 

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. Hey, FRIDAY—”

 

Loki rolled his eyes and grasped both of them by the wrists. Steve encountered that uncomfortable feeling again, then they were standing in an open field in, presumably, rural New Jersey. Tony made a distressed sound and staggered to the side, clutching his stomach. He didn’t vomit.

 

Wanda, Peter, Natasha, Sam, Rhodey and Clint stood off to one side as Vision hovered in the air, firing a steady blast from the stone in his forehead. When the Sokovian girl noticed them, she waved them over. Her eyes were tinted scarlet with stress.

 

“What took so long?” She hissed. “Vision can sense him getting closer.”

 

“Had to take care of some stuff,” Tony said, hands stuffed in his pockets. “You know, board meetings–”

 

The sky rumbled and flashed a platinum blue before a spaceship appeared in front of them just as Strange chose to arrive in a circle of sparks. Loki cursed viciously. “It’s not the _Homestead!_ It’s his envoy ship!”

 

As Wanda yelled for Vision to _go now_ , Tony frowned and his hand hovered over the thing in his chest. “What does that mean?”

 

“Mr. Stark?” Peter called uncertainly from the opposite side of the field from where he stood with Wanda, Sam, Natasha and Rhodey.

 

“It means we’ll have to sneak onto this ship instead, then–”

 

The sky flashed again, and a larger silhouette perched itself above the envoy ship. Loki watched, entire body tense. “Never mind. I’ll bring us straight up there. Change of plans–you.” He pointed at Wanda, who raised an eyebrow. “Stay here. Distract the envoy ship enough to keep their attention on staying in the air.”

 

“But–” She began to protest, but they were already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments make my day :)
> 
> (They also lift me from my depression that is Avengers: Infinity War)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki hates Thanos's ship. And now he's stuck on it with three feuding humans that can't seem to figure out their grudges, despite their ridiculously short lifespans.
> 
> Unfortunately, he's got to stay. He's got to bring Thor home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No spoilers in this chap :) 
> 
> Mentions of psychological torture/physical torture...  
> sorry guys.
> 
> Thanks to my betas, SeetheSea and borkybarnes. Check borky's stories out–they're hilarious. 
> 
> Enjoy!

The _Sanctuary II_ was just as unsettling as Loki remembered it.

 

The ether fought him the entire time as he pulled the humans up. The wards on the hull of the ship shoved against him, telling him _no_ , but Loki was stronger. He pushed past them and brought them up onto the top of the envoy ship crawling with Outriders for a split second before moving them to a small ledge just outside the entrance to the pod bay. But the lip was smaller than Loki expected, and Stark toppled into open air.

 

“Tony!” the Captain yelled, making to jump out after him, but Loki put a hand out to stop him. Stark pressed the glowing reactor on his chest that had stopped Loki from using the Mind Stone on him all those years ago, and his metal suit crawled over him as he fell. The thrusters engaged and he flew back up to the top.

 

“Thanks for the warning, Reindeer Games,” Stark said, his voice echoing strangely through the metal mask. The amateur sorcerer rolled his eyes and produced a whip made of sparks. He wrapped it around the manual hatch and pulled down. The door groaned (it probably hadn’t been opened manually for centuries), and then opened.

 

The few Chitauri guards made alarmed sounds down by their positions a few dozen feet away, by the entrances to the pods themselves. One made off to hit the alarm panel that Loki caught a glimpse of a few feet away, but the Earthen sorcerer used his glowing whip again, wrapping around the alien’s legs and pulled it down. The others rushed forwards, powering up blasters as they went.

 

Captain America threw the foolishly-shaped shield at one of their chests, knocking it over. Stark raised his hands and blasted two others in the face, demolishing both of their heads and sending them crumpling to the ground. Loki engaged the final one, flinging a dagger into its throat just as it fired a high-powered blast, shaking the floor.

 

“Damn,” Loki hissed as it fell. “I hope no one heard that.”

 

“Doubt it,” Stark said easily as the suit folded off of him and back into his chest piece. “You hear that ruckus outside?”

 

Loki had. The shrieks of the Outriders were overlaid by the occasional shuddering _boom_ s and audible explosions of raw power. “Your Maximoff girl isn’t the worst student of magic I’ve ever met. Better than his second-rate sorcery, anyway.” He flicked his fingers and conjured an illusion of the android with the Infinity Stone flying aimlessly above, not targeting the land-bound Outriders.

 

Strange made an indignant sound as Loki strode to the hallway that would lead them further into the ship. He closed his eyes, sending whispers of his magic down the halls and gently touching their minds. It breezed by the animal minds of the Outriders and the marginally more intelligent Chitauri, ignored Cull Obsidian as he prepared to make his way down to the surface, but recoiled as soon at it touched the ice-cold consciousness of Ebony Maw. Loki grit his teeth and forced it farther into the room. It brushed by the mind of Thanos, who had little more in his mind than fire and destruction and a little girl with green skin.

 

It nearly missed the flickering lightning; the riveting, electrifying energy that Loki had known for millennia. Thor’s ravaged mind still pulsed with storms, and Loki latched onto it, even as he distantly heard Thor scream.

 

His eyes snapped open. “This way,” Loki informed the humans standing behind him and gesturing to the left-hand passage.

 

“How do you know?” Stark asked. “I can run a scan–”

 

“My magic is more reliable than your outdated technology,” Loki snapped, already starting down the left hallway. “And I believe I know my brother better than you do.”

 

The two feuding men both frowned but followed behind.

 

They passed many torture chambers and cells on their way there. Loki noted the way that the Captain’s and Tony’s jaws tightened whenever they crept by a prisoner strapped to a rack or simply lying limply on the ground. The sorcerer didn’t flinch. Loki could tell he’d seen enough death to not be bothered by it.

 

One time, Loki pressed them against the wall and hastily covered them with an illusion spell as Corvus Glaive stalked down the hall and towards a cell across the hall from them. The alien stopped in the doorway and jerked his head around. Glaive looked directly at where Loki stood for several moments, as though searching for something out of the ordinary in what he should be seeing as the wall, then snarled irritatedly and turned away.

 

Loki scarcely dared to breathe before the member of the Black Order and the consort of Proxima Midnight turned his back and stormed into the cell.

 

They moved on.

 

When they drew close, Thor’s screams were audible echoing through the corridors. Loki could tell that he heard it at the same time as the others, because the two Avengers stiffened and Rogers took a seemingly involuntary step forwards. Strange simply tilted his head to the side, as though acknowledging the noise.

 

Loki led them quicker, hoping that he wasn’t leading them to his brother’s doom.

 

\---

 

Tony _hated_ this ship.

 

It reminded him way too much of the Chitauri mothership he’d destroyed with a nuke when Loki tried to invade New York all those years ago. His memories of that incident were vague and crystal-clear at the same time; he remembered the precise moment the bomb struck the ship, the moment when his suit’s electricity went out, but he didn’t remember the moment when he’d closed his eyes. Given up.

 

For a while, it had been the only thing he could think about. And now, hearing Thor’s screams and doing nothing, his ingrained fear just increased.

 

Loki took a sharp turn and Tony almost ran into Steve. Automatically, he took a step back and put a hand over his chest, but Loki was gesturing frantically for them to _get down_ and Tony took that reaction as an opportunity to deploy his nanotech. He hissed for FRIDAY to shut off all the external lights on the suit and crouched.

 

Cautiously, he peeked around the corner.

 

There were two mismatched aliens standing along the close wall, their attention on the proceedings before them. One of them, Tony recognized–the female alien named Proxima who had held Loki captive for all of two seconds at the initial battle in Central Park. The other reminded Tony way too much of an old Spongebob character. He was saying a few words over and over, something about _You are a child of Thanos, forever, always_.

 

Both of their gazes were fixed on a purple giant standing by the far wall, its bulk blocking whatever it was looking at. Chains rustled and clanked as the giant bent his head and muttered something. Squidward raised his voice louder, repeating a few choice words again and again.

 

Tony somehow knew that they were aimed at Thor. He’d seen the footage of Zemo infiltrating Barnes’s cell, reading a set of words in Russian. He hadn’t realized why Barnes had been freaking out so badly until the evil dude spoke the final phrase and Steve’s friend had gone completely, utterly still. The Winter Soldier was released.

 

And god _dammit_ , Tony had been so neglectful that he’d allowed this to happen to Thor.

 

He could tell that Steve recognized what was happening, too–his face was pale in the sheer blue light coming from the room. Loki’s face was twisted in a snarl, and his hands formed claws as though he was readying himself for magic.

 

The purple dude that Tony assumed was Thanos grasped hold of the chains that went all the way up to the ceiling and lifted someone upwards to eye level. Tony caught glimpse of a red cape and an eyepatch and–yep, that’s definitely Thor. Thanos muttered something in the god’s ear and then dropped him, stepping away and dusting his hands off. A golden glove covered one of his hands with two glowing stones set into the knuckles that reminded Tony of the Mind Stone embedded in Vision’s forehead.

 

Thor dangled limply from the chains, head hanging low and feet barely brushing the floor. All his weight seemed to be on his arms, and he seemed to be only semi-conscious. Tony began to try to get his attention, but Loki fixed a hand on the suit and yanked him backwards. “Do _not_ let him see you,” Loki hissed. “He’s under Thanos’s control, no matter what they’re doing to him. We have to wait for them to leave.”

 

“Well, well, well, what have we here?” A reedy voice drawled from a few feet away. Loki’s face went deathly pale and he turned slowly, dragging Tony around with him. The inventor caught a glimpse of Thor blearily lifting his head, his gaze frighteningly blank, before Loki pulled him fully to face the creature that had discovered him.

 

“Ebony Maw,” Loki said in a shaky voice. “Pleasure to see you again.”

 

“Boner– _what_ ?” Tony tried; _Jesus, that’s the best you can come up with?_

 

Squidward-Maw smiled horrifically and completely ignored Tony. “Loki of Asgard. I’m sure my master would love to discover that you have returned to us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know in Infinity War that it said that Thor was 1,500 years old, but I’m making him older. There are traces of Thor’s character in mythology dating back to the Bronze Age, and it doesn’t make sense for Thor to be so young, especially when Odin was more than half a million years old, as suggested by Thor saying that his father had killed Surtur “half a million years ago.”
> 
> Also, I realized that Thanos’s ship is called the Sanctuary II, not the Homestead. I switched it in this chapter. Just be warned. Homestead is Clint’s farm. Whoops. :|
> 
> Kudos and comments much appreciated :) As well as instructions as to how to italicize and bold things in summaries. Seriously. I have no idea.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor, bloody and beaten, hanging from chains attached to the ceiling, is definitely not what Tony wants to be seeing. Neither is a hulking purple giant and a Squidward ripoff.
> 
> Guess we can't always get what we want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys have probably noticed that my estimated chapter count keeps going up. My betas and I are both putting the cap at 10 chapters. It might even be nine, if I can motivate myself to be succinct, which I probably can't, sooo...
> 
> Not mine. Marvel's. Unfortunately. Beta'd by borkybarnes and SeetheSea. Enjoy! :)

Ebony-Mouth (or whatever, Tony couldn’t keep track anymore) kept his gruesome smile as he reached out a hand and an invisible force threw Tony into the room. He grunted as his body jolted in the nanotech suit. Steve and Strange followed after, and the squashed-nose guy manually dragged Loki into the room. “My liege,” Ebony-Douche bowed, still keeping his grip on Loki’s collar. “I bring a gift. A… training pet, if your new champion is willing.”

  
  
Thanos stepped forwards, eyeing the furious god of mischief, then waved his hand. With a purple glow, the chains holding the one-eyed Asgardian glowed molten orange and then snapped. Thor fell to his knees, his hands coming to clutch his chest. “Come now, my child,” Thanos said with a harsh, grating intonation that made it sound like _do it or I’ll hurt you_. Thor stayed still for several moments, heaving for breath, before looking up. Tony struggled against the invisible weight pressing his suit into the floor, and Steve and Strange did the same. The sorcerer grimaced and struggled to move his arms; a circle of sparks began to form itself beneath him.

 

Thor stumbled to his feet, seemingly growing stronger with every step he took. Blood dripped from his fingertips as his hands closed into fists. His face was twisted into an unnatural snarl as Spongebob-Dick smirked and released Loki, tossing him farther towards Thor.

 

As lightning flickered up Thor’s arms, Strange finally got his portal to work and fell through the floor. White-Dude’s head jerked up as the sorcerer dropped from the ceiling and hovered up in place, shooting orange energy straight at the alien’s face.

 

With a roar, Thor charged forwards as Ebony-Mouth crumpled, the weight on Tony’s shoulders disappeared, and Strange lowered to the ground. But before Thanos could intervene, even though he didn’t seem to have an interest in doing so, Loki’s hands glowed bright green and Tony’s world fell around him.

 

\---

 

Tony couldn’t decide if Loki was brilliant or psychotic. In the blink of an eye, he was standing back in the New Jersey field, only this time it was splattered with alien guts and dead bodies. His stomach lurched and he swallowed back bile. It was official, he _hated_ Loki’s teleportation.

 

Wanda tossed the last alien-dog so high that it became a speck in the sky and whirled towards Tony. He, Strange, Steve and Loki all stood in a line with the other Avengers scattered across the field, all spattered with alien blood. Sam and Rhodey both set down just behind Tony, and the Vision apparition disappeared. Natasha, Peter and Clint all jogged up, looking disheveled but unhurt. Wanda landed in a whirlwind of scarlet. Loki smirked at them all, then vanished in a flash of green light with Strange in tow.

 

Thor knelt across the field from them, eerily still except for the heaving of his shoulders and the faint traces of electricity across his skin. Clint squinted. “Whoa,” He said, sounding like he was worried but trying to hide it. “Where’d his hair go?”

 

Loki’s brother staggered to his feet, fixing his gaze on the group of Avengers clustered in the field. His eye sparked with light and he glowed with electricity and started running down the field. “Whoa!” Clint yelped, reaching for an arrow. “Where’d his _eye_ go?”

  
  
“Aim to take him down!” Cap called out, pulling his shield off his back.  “Try not to hurt him–just disable. And watch out–”

 

The sky darkened and thunder boomed. As Thor neared, lightning cracked the sky and Wanda yelped, throwing up a scarlet shield and shuddering when the bolt hit it with such force that the protective barrier bent.

 

“—for the lightning,” Steve finished unnecessarily. “Clint, Nat, Sam, stay out of his way. You’re not enhanced; he’ll fry you.”

 

“You too, kid.” Tony called, firing up his repulsors to half-power and lifting his palms. “Spider-Man stays close to the ground, remember?”

  
  
“But Mr. Stark,” Peter whined, getting into a fighting stance despite Tony’s explicit order. “I _am_ close to the ground. It’s not like he’s– _whoa!”_

 

Spider-Man dove to the side as a spear of lightning made a beeline straight for his chest. He shot a web out at Thor and tried to pull him down, but the demigod only ripped it off. “Aw, come on!” Peter complained.

 

“Hey, Nat,” Tony called as he lifted into the air and grabbed Peter by the scruff of his neck. “Would you watch the little Spiderling, please?”

 

“Not a babysitter, Tony,” Nat told him, but yanked Peter over to her anyway.

 

“Yo, Clint!” Tony yelled as he dodged another lightning blast and tossed Cap’s shield back to him after throwing it at Thor. “You still got those Hulk tranqs I made you?”

 

“Yeah, why?” The archer called, nocking a zap-arrow then seeming to reconsider.

 

“Use them, genius!” Rhodey yelled as he flew by, seemingly at a loss of what to do with himself as Tony hadn’t equipped him with many non-lethal weapons. Note to self— _upgrade Rhodey’s suit, idiot._

 

Thor snarled in annoyance as Wanda encased him in a glowing sphere, clasping her hands together with her eyes glowing with effort. His eye flared brighter and a shuddering white-hot blast of lightning exploded, shattering Wanda’s shield, throwing Tony, Sam and Rhodey from the sky, and flinging Cap to the other side of the field. Nat grunted as Peter pulled her down and shielded her with his body, his stupid, self-sacrificing kid. Clint yelped as he was thrown from his perch in a nearby tree, dropping the tranquilizer arrow.

 

Well, shit. Tony knew that Thor was powerful, but wherever he’d been in the past two years, he’d definitely gotten stronger. Without the Hulk, they stood virtually no chance of taking the god down.

 

Sam struggled to his feet and tried to get back in the air, but his wings sparked and smoked and he remained on the ground. “Wilson, go help Cap!”

 

“By _running?”_ Sam complained. Tony simply powered his repulsors up again and lifted into the air, aiming a stun-bolt at Thor and missing. Thor knocked Rhodey out of the sky when he drew too close with a well-aimed punch that was reinforced with a blast of lightning. He tried to get up, but the suit didn’t move. “Tony, my tech is fried,” Rhodey called. “I can’t get up.”

 

“Cap’s down, too,” Sam yelled as he neared the fallen Captain America. “Nasty hit to the head; he’s probably fine.”

 

“Wanda!” Natasha yelled from where she stood by Clint, her Widow-Bites at the ready but currently unusable, as she couldn’t touch Thor anyway. The archer was desperately sorting through his quiver, looking for something. “Operation Foxhole!”

 

“Operation what now?” Tony demanded, because seriously? That’s the best they could come up with? But Wanda seemed to know what she was doing, because she shot a hand out and formed floating platforms of her red magic. Romanov leaped up and up, using them as stepping stools, and dropped straight onto Thor’s shoulders, twisting her legs at such an angle that Thor stumbled. The god looked so stunned that the light briefly flickered out, and Wanda flicked her fingers at Thor’s head. Both of their eyes glowed red and Tony was unpleasantly reminded of the nightmare incident of Strucker’s Sokovia base.

 

Natasha rolled off of Thor and stepped back, breathing heavily. Tony set down on the ground next to Clint, who had abandoned his arrow-hunt and was watching instead. “Foxhole?” Tony hissed to him.

 

Clint rolled his eyes. “It was supposed to be a joke, but it was Sam, so it was a bad one.” Clint gestured vaguely around his head. “Wanda’s supposed to burrow into the enemy’s head, bring in nightmares to disable him, or something. Maybe she can dredge up some memories?”

 

The trail of crimson streaming from Wanda’s fingers pulsed in time with her breaths. Her hands trembled, and Thor fell to his knees, clutching at his head. Wanda made a distressed sound as her eyes grew brighter and brighter until red light washed over Thor’s prone form. She stepped closer to him until his forehead was just out of reach of her fingertips.

 

Peter pulled on Tony’s arm, which would’ve been pretty ineffective if he hadn’t been enhanced and able to move Tony’s suit without aid. “Mr. Stark?”

 

“What, kid?” Tony said distractedly, because anything that the kid had to say couldn’t be as important as the outcome of this situation between Wanda and Thor. “Can’t look at any butterflies right now.”

  
  
“Mr. _Stark!”_ Peter insisted, nudging the suit again to gain Tony’s attention, which he did.

 

“Not now, Peter!” He snapped, but the kid ignored him.

 

“The spaceship’s moving!” He said, and pointed a spandex-covered finger to the sky.

 

The kid was right. Both the envoy ship and the larger ship above it were beginning to lift into the sky, their thrusters firing white-hot and entering into the higher atmosphere.

 

“Shit!” Tony yelled. He did a quick roundabout glance at the people that remained standing–Wanda would’ve been able to help, had she not been straining to keep the god down with Thor on the ground in front of her. Nat stepped up to her side with Clint right behind her, but neither of them would be able to get anywhere near the giant spaceship. Peter was still standing next to him, but the kid was about as useful as a bump on a log in regards to a flying ship that was entering the outer atmosphere.  

 

The envoy ship shuddered suddenly, and then exploded into a starburst of green and purple. It broke in half, and as it fell, both the huge spaceship and the wrecked one vanished in a flash of blue light just as Loki, Strange, a tattered-looking Bruce Banner, and an array of filthy and bloody people in Asgardian-looking clothing appeared in a glow of green light.

 

Wanda shouted as Thor shook his head and the red floating from Wanda’s fingers vanished. His eye burned with empty fury as he lashed out with a kick, sending Wanda flying to the treeline a few dozen meters away. The girl didn’t get back up.

 

Clint resumed his arrow-hunt. Natasha helped him.

 

“Hey, Sparkles!” Spider-Man called before Tony could stop him. The kid had gotten back up from wherever he was thrown, and he was still in high spirits, with his returning wisecracks. Clearly trying to provoke Thor, he aimed his webshooter at the god, but frowned when it sparked and didn’t do anything.

  
  
The words seemed to have the opposite effect. Thor’s brow furrowed, not unlike the time where Thor had hit his head so hard on the wall of Thanos’s ship that some of his memories were jarred loose. He shook his head as though clearing away spots in his vision and muttered something about “God, not Lord,” whatever that meant.

 

Then the Asgardian crumpled to the ground with the sound of shattering glass, revealing a toffee-skinned woman with white markings on her face standing with a broken bottle stem in her hand. Thor frowned and made to get up, but she threw a little disc on him and clicked a little fob. Thor fell down hard.

 

Loki stepped up to her side, frowning at his now-unconscious brother. “You know he hates it when you do that.”

 

The woman shrugged, tossing the broken bottle away and kneeling at Thor’s side. “He’ll have to deal with it.”

 

“All right,” Tony said, retracting his faceplate and noting the Asgardians (including the evil-but-not-really mischief god, the weird lady with silvery markings on her face, and Bruce Banner in a tattered cloak and stretched pants). “What the hell?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments make my day:)
> 
> INFINITY WAR RANT BELOW:  
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> Okay, here it is. 
> 
> I am getting annoyed with the amount of people who, after seeing how badass Thor is in Infinity War, are suddenly like OMG! Thor! I love him! He's so cool!
> 
> Okay, I've been a Thor fan for SO much longer, and I actually wasn't even a huge fan of what they did for Thor in Infinity War. They completely ignored his character arc from Ragnarok. The WHOLE POINT of that movie was, "Thor, you don't need a hammer! You're the god of thunder! You don't need two eyes!" Blah blah blah. Then, as soon as they get into Infinity War? "Thor, HAMMER. YOU NEED A HAMMER. HAMMER. HIT THINGS. HAMMER. EYE. IGNORE LOKI & ODIN. EYE."
> 
> No, thanks. You can fight me in the comments. I dare you. 
> 
> Rant over. 
> 
> Sorry if that came off as aggressive, but I was kind of upset about it and I needed to get that off my chest. :). 
> 
> Again, I love kudos/comments! I need to beat my friend.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our favorite superhero duo has a talk, largely due to the interference of our favorite drunken Asgardian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had so much fun writing this. I'm actually really proud. Not much actually happens, but...
> 
> Not mine. Marvel's. :(
> 
> enjoy!

“Master,” Ebony Maw groveled, kneeling at his father’s feet. “Your champion has been captured by the Terrans. The rodents that call themselves Avengers.”   


Thanos clenched the fist with the Infinity Gauntlet and he shot a bolt of energy from the Power Stone at the wall of the spaceship. Ebony Maw winced and reinforced the wall on the other side with metal he dragged in from the wreckage of the envoy ship. “My children,” Thanos rumbled after a moment, standing tall and facing away from both Maw and Proxima Midnight. “You have failed me. But so has the Asgardian.”

  
  
He turned. “Did you locate the Mind Stone?”

  
  
Proxima bowed her head. “We did, father. It resides in the forehead of an android, but it disappeared once I reached the field.”

  
  
“No matter.” Thanos said, turning back to the window. “We will make to Knowhere. I have no need of the Asgardian anymore.”

 

\---

 

Steve crossed his arms over his chest as he surveyed the monitors displaying Thor, where he lay crumpled on a bench in the small cell in the basement of the Avengers Tower. The dude hadn’t moved after getting up from the zappy-disc and getting hit over the head with the hilt of the crazy woman’s sword, whose name was apparently Valkyrie.

 

The amount of Thor’s people left was… alarming. Loki had told them in very little detail of Thanos’s bad habit of slaughtering half the population, despite the fact that the Asgardian population had _already_ been more than halved in an event that Loki refused to elaborate on. Thanos had butchered exactly half of the remaining Asgardian population, and then more had died in a freak accident involving an explosion, an alien named Corvus Glaive, and a giant axe.

 

“So,” Tony said, startling Steve as he came up from behind him. “Wakanda?”

  
  
Steve shrugged nonchalantly, trying to not give away the knot of regret in his gut. If Tony didn’t feel guilty, which he clearly didn’t, then Steve wouldn’t be guilty either. “What can I say? They’ve got good plantains.”

  
  
“I’m sure.” There was a pregnant pause, then Tony gestured towards the fallen demigod. “Can you believe any of this?”

  
  
“Not really,” Steve said. “I always kinda thought he was invincible.”

  
  
“Me, too.”

  
  
Valkyrie’s muffled voice came from the other side of the door. She was clearly yelling at someone, but whoever the other person was wasn’t being loud enough to be heard. She shouted, “At least he did _something!”_ before storming into the room and slamming the door. She had changed out of her white-and-gold battle-gear into dark armor with a blue cape. The white on her face only accentuated the anger in her eyes, and Steve shifted uncomfortably.

 

She took one look at the two men standing in front of the window, and what was behind the screen, and snarled, kicking the wall so hard that the steel-reinforced concrete cracked and a chunk broke away.

 

She spun back towards Tony and Steve and demanded, “How do you Terrans deal with grudges?”

 

When she was met with blank stares, she rolled her eyes and elaborated. “You have such short lives. Less than a century. You–you can’t waste your lives on holding grudges, so how do you _deal_ with them?”

 

More blank stares. She sighed and bent over, picking up the two-hundred-pound chunk of concrete with her bare hands and attempted to force it back into the wall. “I’ve lived for thousands of years. Held grudges for nearly all of them, against Thor’s sister, and his father, and the entire Asgardian empire, really. Long story. And I could never stop to think about what I’d lost, because it was _everything_. So I just kept running, and when Thor showed up, I was… angry.

 

“He arrived at my hidey-hole planet, missing a weapon and enslaved to the man I was working for with a Jotunn brother and some flashy tricks, then had the gall to ask for my help to fight his sister. Again. And I was so angry, I told him to go screw himself, because I wasn’t going to give up my life to fight for the throne that had given me nothing. But he was so stubborn that he went to save his planet anyway, alone, with no chance of winning, and I couldn’t help but think that _that_ was the kind of person that Asgard needed. Not some Allfather, know-everything-but-do-nothing kind of guy, but someone who’s willing to give up everything just to save his people.

 

“So I went. I fought the stupid hag who had killed everyone I’d ever loved, stabbed my newest sort-of friend in the eye and nearly destroyed his planet–my planet–, and I shoved a sword through her gut. But the hatred never went away, and I just find myself resenting the throne more and more but caring more and more. And his brother just sat in a corner as my king, my _friend_ was tortured to insanity for months. And now I just can’t help but think the throne was exactly what I thought it was.”

 

The concrete nearly fit, but no matter what angle she tried to force it in, it wouldn’t stay. “I consider relationships… kind of like this stupid wall. You can break it, come back and try to fix it, but it never quite… fits the same.”

 

Tony, in that offhanded tone he so often used when he was saying something personal but didn’t want people to read into it, said, “Fill in the cracks until it’s as smooth as it was before.”

 

“But the cracks don’t go away.” Valkyrie challenged.

 

Tony shrugged. “Never will. But they can smooth out.”

 

The Asgardian woman sighed and let the slab fall to the ground. “Guess that’s the best I can hope for.”

 

Steve opened his mouth to say… something. Anything, but he couldn’t find the words. What this warrioress from Thor’s planet had said had hit close to home. She was _right_. It was folly, immature, and all-around _stupid_ to hold a grudge of this magnitude while the world, their friend’s world, the _universe itself_ was at stake.

 

Why hadn’t Steve made the freaking phone call?

 

Steve had been the one to _send_ the phone, in case Tony needed to contact him or vice versa. Both Steve’s team and the Avengers were lacking in players. Tony, really, only had three Avengers on call–himself, Rhodey, and Vision, the latter of which disappeared for weeks at a time with Wanda and the former of which has a serious spinal injury and couldn’t go on regular missions. Steve had two ex-assassins, one of which who was retired, a frozen World War II veteran, a traumatized telekinetic telepath who disappeared regularly with Vision, and an African king who had bigger problems than dealing with a few renegade superheroes. If Steve had called, maybe Tony could’ve granted them leniency or given them cases that he couldn’t get to without the UN breathing down his neck. He could’ve at least given Clint a safe place to stay with his family–hell, Tony would’ve been happy to.

 

As Valkyrie stepped out of the room into Thor’s cell, Steve and Tony blurted out at the same time, “I’m sorry.”

 

Tony made a startled face that was halfway between _I just bit a lemon_ and _someone just slapped me in the face for no reason_. He opened his mouth, but Steve plowed on.

 

“No, Stark,” He said, feeling remorse bubble up in him again. “This was my fault. I should’ve talked to you from the beginning, instead of… using my fists.”

 

The entire story spilled out. The fiasco with the Winter Soldier, the corruption of SHIELD and HYDRA’s involvement, his secret hunt with Sam to track down Bucky and bring him back, and how, after Bucky was blamed for the UN attack, Steve had tracked him down. He spoke of the other five Winter Soldiers that Bucky recalled, and Zemo, and how Steve had tried to stop him. And most importantly, how freaking _sorry_ he was.

 

“I didn’t mean to split up the team,” Steve explained despairingly. “I was just trying to keep the Avengers together, in whatever way I could. But–Tony, the UN, the Accords… that–”

 

“Wasn’t the right answer, either,” Stark interrupted, a bitter-yet-enlightened look on his face. “I realized that too, after. I read the fine print, and it’s bad news bears for any and all enhanced people. Why do you think I didn’t let my–the kid sign them? I just… I think we should’ve talked it out. Instead of, you know, destroying three airplanes and causing millions of dollars' worth of damages.

 

Steve winced. “Not my finest moment.”

 

Tony snorted. “Can say that again.”

 

“I’m glad the kid’s got your back,” Steve said, seemingly startling Tony again. “Even though he’s from Queens.”

 

Tony barked out a harsh laugh, then stuck out a hand. “Good to have you back, Rogers.”

 

Steve took Tony’s hand and shook firmly. “Steve.”

 

“Steve,” Tony repeated as though he hadn’t called him that before, offering up a half-smile.

 

Steve suddenly felt a weight bump against the back of his knees, knocking him straight into Tony’s chest with a surprised grunt. Tony, seemingly involuntarily, put an arm around Steve’s shoulders to steady him. Before the billionaire could pull away, Steve wrapped his arm around Tony and held on for just long enough for the hug to sink in. When he let go, Tony straightened the collar of his suit jacket and cleared his throat before looking towards the ground.

 

“DUM-E, how many times do I have to tell you that you don’t have _clearance_ to be down here? C’mon, you glorified toaster, get. FRIDAY, how’d he even get down here? Never mind, I don’t want to know, just get him out of here–”

 

Steve smirked down at the little robot, who let out a little squeal. The thing looked almost… smug.

 

Tony halfheartedly kicked at the bot as it fled the room, bumping into the abandoned slab of concrete on its way out. “Stupid robots,” He muttered.

 

“Actually,” Steve said, smiling slightly at the inventor’s antics and clapping Tony on the back as he made his way towards the door to Thor’s cell. “I think they’re smarter than they let on.”  


\---

 

A shout echoed in from Thor’s room, and a dent appeared in the solid steel wall. “Stop it!” Valkyrie yelled from in the cell, presumably at Thor. “Don’t make me zap you!”

  
  
Steve and Tony exchanged frantic glances before racing into the room, slamming the door shut behind them. Valkyrie, clearly the source of the indentation in the wall, was clambering to her feet and clutching a golden controller of some sort. Thor, a few feet away, had a hand against the side of his neck and a confused look on his face. When Steve and Tony burst in, however, he went on the defensive, backing against the wall and letting sparks fly from his fingers.

 

“Get Loki,” Valkyrie hissed to them. Thor crouched and his eye glowed. “Get Loki now!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments make my day :). 
> 
> I know I said that it's gonna be 10 chapters, and I'm TRYING, guys, I'm trying. But I'm halfway through chapter 9 and I have no resolution thus far. May take longer. Whoops!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint didn't want to be dealing with gods, superhumans, and protective Natashas, but, well, when do we get what we want?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not mine. Marvel's. Hope you enjoy!

Wanda, Sam, Clint, Natasha, and Rhodey were all sitting at the bar on the second floor of the Stark Tower when the building shook.

 

Clint hadn’t been expecting it. He had thought that they were done with attacks on the Tower after Ultron, but from the feel of it, they weren’t done just yet. Wanda yelped and caught their glasses as they slid off the bar, and Rhodey toppled over.

 

“What’s going on?” Natasha asked, her posture going from relaxed to _I’m-Black-Widow-a-super-Russian-assassin-fight-me-and-die._ “What did Stark do now?”

 

Sam offered a hand up to Rhodey. “What _didn’t_ Stark do?”

 

Speak of the devil and he shall appear, Clint thought. Tony’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Code red—uh, code _Brainwashed Norse God!_ Someone find Loki!”

 

“Loki?” Clint repeated incredulously. “Why?”

 

“I don’t know, Katniss!” Stark snapped. _Whoops._ Clint hadn’t realized that this new system was two-way. “Our resident Asgardian Princess seems to think it would be a good idea– _watch it_ , Cap!”

 

“The lovers are back together again,” Sam muttered under his breath.

 

Wanda’s eyes glowed and she deliberately ignored Sam's antics, and _come on_ , that was hilarious. “He’s in the basement, Stark. He’s asking me what’s going on.”

 

“Well, tell him— _gah—_ tell him that Thor’s having a breakdown! Valkyrie thinks that it’s a good idea for him to come down!”

 

A pause. “He’s on his way.”

 

The intercom cut out.

 

“Hey,” Clint said, feeling mischief and totally _not_ worry for Stark and Steve bubble up. “They’re in the basement, right?”

 

“Clint, no.” Natasha told him in her _that’s the end of this discussion_ voice.

 

“Clint _yes!”_ Sam corrected, offering a high five. “Let’s go!”

 

“Boys, no, you’re not enhanced, he’ll disintegrate you—” Natasha yelled, but they were already sprinting for the stairs.

 

“C’mon, Rhodey!” Clint called as they opened the door. “It’ll be fun!”

 

“Oh, no,” Rhodey said, raising his glass in a salute. “I’m good right here.”

 

“Suit yourself, old man!” Sam teased, and Wanda rolled her eyes and followed them. “This is a bad idea.”

 

“You bet!” Sam cheered. “Which is why we’re doing… whoa.”

 

As they exited the stairwell, Wanda threw up a shield as a bolt of pure lightning nearly took Clint’s head off. _Watch yourself, Clint_ , he reminded himself. _You’re not twenty anymore_.

 

“Get down!” Clint recognized the voice of Thor’s new girlfriend who loved to drink more than she loved interacting with anyone. She was the only one still standing. The wall of the cell that Thor was supposed to be occupying was completely blown out and there were blackened lines burned into every visible surface, giving the wrecked hall a horror movie look.

 

Steve and Stark were crouched behind an upturned table, Stark wearing his Iron Man suit and Steve holding his shield. The suit was sparking, as though it had been overwhelmed with too much energy, and his repulsors looked cracked and broken. He probably wouldn’t be flying or firing any blasts anytime soon, which basically took Iron Man out of the equation. Valkyrie was standing in the center of the room, trying to draw Thor’s fire. She deflected blast after blast of electricity with the blade of her sword, but there were burns singed all over her armor. She occasionally yelled one-liners like, “C’mon, Sparkles!” or “Your Majesty, _listen to me!”_

 

When she caught sight of Clint, Sam, and Wanda, still standing there, dumbfounded, in the doorway, she shouted over the hiss of electricity, “Get down and _stay_ down!”

 

“What’s going on?” Clint called over the noise, even though he thought he had a pretty good idea.

 

“What do you _think_ , Legolas?” Stark yelled, his faceplate receding. “Get over here!”

 

Clint took a running leap and rolled under a blast, knocking into Stark and–well, Clint would have knocked him over had the inventor not been wearing the heavy Iron Man armor. Sam army-crawled. Wanda simply jogged with a glowing red shield between her and where Thor was standing, still in the cell.

 

Clint scowled. _Show-off._

 

“Why’s he still in the cell?” Sam demanded, panting. “Wouldn’t it be better to get him out here so we can, you know, actually _subdue_ him?”

 

“He couldn’t concentrate long enough to snap the vibranium cuffs,” Stark said, eyes fixed on the Asgardian woman who continued to yell at presumably Thor, who was blocked from Clint’s view by an inconveniently-placed wall. “He’ll figure out eventually that he can just break them off or rip the chain out of the wall.”

 

“Couldn’t concentrate?” Wanda asked, tossing up a shield in front of Valkyrie when she was nearly too slow to dodge a shot. A low hum came up right at the base of Clint’s skull and sent all the loose objects in the room vibrating. Valkyrie yelled, “Heads up!” and a white-hot explosion blinded Clint.

 

And now he really wished he had his bow. Jesus, how the hell was Clint caught up in this epic magic battle between immortal Asgardian warriors and enhanced superhumans and an arrogant billionaire and a Sam? His life was getting weirder by the hour.

 

“He does this weird thing every minute or so,” Steve said once Clint’s ears stopped ringing. The Captain looked no worse for wear after that terrible, awful sensation that Clint never wanted to experience ever again. Curse the stupid superhumans and their stupid superhealing. Clint wanted that. It wasn’t fair. “He almost seems to fight with himself, forget where he is. Headache, or something. Then he gets mad again, and, well.” He gestured around them to the burns on the walls.

 

“So…” Clint said, wiggling his fingers for lack of anything to do with them. “Thor’s basically having a godly meltdown?”

 

“You try dealing with it!” Valkyrie yelled at him. “C’mon, Lord, make this a little easier for me! Now, for the love of all my ancestors, _where is Loki?”_

 

Jesus, Clint was really starting to subscribe to this _speak of the devil and he shall appear_ theory. “I’m here,” Aforementioned devil but dressed in green and black announced. “What seems to be the–”

 

 _Problem_ , Clint finished smugly in his head as Loki yelped and narrowly avoided getting his head blown off. “Ah. So that’s the problem.”

 

“Yeah, so deal with it!” Valkyrie yelled at him. “It’s your psycho brother that you let get tortured into insanity! Therefore, it’s _your_ problem!”

 

Whoa. That seemed to hit a nerve with Loki, because he turned towards her and snarled, “At least _I_ don’t run from them.”

 

She got right up in his face, momentarily forgetting about Thor. “Do you see me running?”

 

“I’m gonna be running if you guys don’t deal with your prince!” Clint interjected, gesturing towards the area of the room with a feral god occupying it.

 

The room shook again, and then Thor appeared from around the corner. There were no manacles on his wrists, which probably meant that he’d _broken the Vibranium cuffs._ His face, which Clint had pointedly not looked too closely at, because, frankly, he was too afraid of the damage he would find on his friend. But now, Thor’s eye glowed, a faded metal eyepatch covered his right eye, and bruises ringed his throat. The haircut still made Clint do a double-take—the long hair that Stark loved to call Thor’s Goldilocks hair had been a trademark of the Asgardian, and to see it missing was still disconcerting. What could have possibly brought him so low? His eye, his hammer, his _planet_ , and Thor was supposed to be a god.

 

Well, he apparently wasn’t laid low enough to beat the Avengers to a pulp—or at least try. He glared fiercely at Loki and stuck out his hands, which glowed with electricity, and shot out a blast of pure lightning right at Loki’s chest.

 

Clint thought the god of mischief was a goner. To be honest, he wasn’t too broken up about it.

 

But Loki tossed up a shield of pure green light and the bolt of lightning bounced straight off onto the ceiling, blasting a hole straight through and up to the floor above. His hands glowed emerald and he _shoved_ , lifting a table that, incidentally, Clint was using for cover and shoving it into Thor.

 

“Hey,” He complained. “I was using that.”

 

“Not anymore,” Valkyrie told him as she ducked another blast.

 

“You know, I don’t like it when people take my stuff,” Tony said petulantly. “And that was my table.”

 

“Mine, too!” Clint insisted, ducking when Cap threw his shield to knock away another lightning blast. The red-white-and-blue Frisbee clattered to the ground.

 

“Brother,” Loki snapped as Thor clambered to his feet, shoving the table off with a disjointed snarl. The guy seemed unbalanced, off-center, as though he couldn’t think clearly enough to keep upright. “Listen to me. Listen to my voice. Don’t let him control you.”

 

Him. Clint had hardly heard anything about how Thor had ended up like this—brainwashed, injured, lashing out at everything and everyone—but he’d heard the name Thanos. The name had automatically reminded Clint of a second grade bully and he’d hated the guy even before learning that he’d tortured one of his friends for months on end.

 

Thor stumbled backwards, clutching at his head, and the lightning writhing on his skin dissipated. Loki mouthed something at Valkyrie, and she turned to Stark. “He needs Banner. Where’s the big guy?”

 

“Still getting checked out by Cho,” Tony hissed to her. “You know, for any alien diseases that he might have picked up after being on an alien planet for _two years_.”

 

Despite Loki holding his brother down by literal force of will, Valkyrie rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. I lived there for thousands of years and _I_ didn’t pick up any alien diseases. Unless—you guys don’t have Boraxilis here, right?”

 

That sounded like an exotic toe fungus. Clint hoped he never experienced it. “Nope.”

 

“Good,” Valkyrie said, then switched her attention back to Loki. “He’s not available currently. Please take a message. What do you need him for?”

 

“The fight!” Loki snapped. “The more recent memories, the better. And we certainly aren’t getting Hela in here.”

 

“I had presumed not,” Valkyrie told him. “What about me? I was there.”

 

“It will have to be good enough.” Loki said, then flicked his eyes around the small group of Avengers before settling on…

 

Clint. Perfecto. No, thank you-o. Loki could go die in a ditch before Clint would let Loki back in his head. He told the Asgardian so.

 

Loki sighed. “I know, but, to be frank, I have the most experience in your head, and I need to make this quick—Thor, calm down for _one minute!”_ He snapped at his brother. Wanda pressed down against Thor’s shoulders with her magic, just barely managing to keep him down. The lightning still hadn’t resurfaced, and Thor looked more coignant now, but still messed up.

 

“Look, Barton, I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t have to. I know the consequences of mind manipulation.” Loki’s gaze drifted to Thor. “Probably better than anyone. But I need to dredge up his memories, and the only way I can do that is if I know what you did these past years when I wasn’t present.”

  
  
Wanda pushed harder against Thor, straining, and then her voice echoed in his head. _Clint. I won’t let him take you. I’ll kill him myself if he tries—but please. Thor needs your help._

 

Clint scanned the faces in the room—Steve looked sympathetic, like he wanted to protest, but at the same time, he knew Loki was right. Stark’s mask had come back up, but his body language radiated desperation. Valkyrie was swinging her sword idly back and forth, but her body posture was unsympathetic. Sam simply smirked and clapped Clint on the back. “See you on the other side, buddy.”

 

Knowing his decision was made (a tiny bit for him, but whatever), he sighed and got up. “Fine. What are you gonna do?”

 

“Maximoff,” Loki said, ignoring Clint’s question. “You’re good at manipulation. Come here.”

 

“Bit busy,” She gritted out. “What do you need me to do?”

 

“Link our minds. If you can find where his memories are locked away, and reactivate them with ours, he’ll come back. Probably.” 

 

“ _Probably_?” Valkyrie demanded. “We need to be past _probably_ at this point, Lackey.”

 

“At least I’m helping!” Loki told her. “Come here.”

 

She rolled her eyes and swaggered over. “You go anywhere you’re not supposed to, it’ll make Sakaar look like a playground fight. Understand?”

 

Loki, to his credit, only looked a tiny bit intimidated as he touched two fingers to Clint and Valkyrie’s foreheads and Wanda flicked out red tendrils of magic towards their heads. And then, just like with the scepter all those years ago, everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments make my day :)
> 
> Shoutout/Thanks to user AcelinWolf and guest JediStarkXavierDivergent11+or+Obi (nice name!) for commenting unfailingly on every single chapter! You make my day and make me smile. :). One chapter left! (Maybe). I may have to push it to eleven if I can't manage to fit it into only one more. Eek.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor is finally back, Loki thought. For good. 
> 
> ...But his brother's journey in the future isn't going to be easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO SORRY for the long wait!! I was working on this for SO LONG, and it was more than 5,000 words, and I still hadn't said all I wanted to, so finally my beta was like ENOUGH! So I split it in half. :) or :(, not sure. Hopefully Chapter 11 (or chapter 10, part 2) will be up soon. 
> 
> Not mine. Marvel's. Thanks to the SeetheSea!

Loki hadn’t _meant_ to inflict the fallout of his magic on the Avengers.

 

No matter what Valkyrie said, it was true. Why would he want to expose exactly what Thor had been doing these past couple of years—exploring the cosmos, looking for Infinity Stones, fighting fire demons and evil sisters, and enduring months of endless torture? They didn’t really need a more inflated opinion of his brother than they already had. It was bad enough that he had a fan following that Loki really didn’t want to know about. If they knew exactly how powerful his brother had become, they’d start worshipping him like the gods of old.

 

But the mixture of his magic with that of the Maximoff girl’s, too similar to the Mind Stone, and the fact that he was occupying several species’ minds at the same time was too disorienting. Loki only had time to navigate through Thor’s wrecked and shattered mind and find the distant place where Thanos had hidden all the memories behind a near-impenetrable door. Loki dug his magic into the seams and _pulled_ , using the memories of Barton and Maximoff and Valkyrie as well as his own as a crowbar to pry the door open. And with a groan, it did, spilling out the ravaged but so undeniably _Thor’s_ memories.

 

Loki hoped the Avengers only experienced flashes of thought—glimpses of the stones and distant galaxies, of Surtur, of Hela, of Sakaar and the Hulk, of the despair of being trapped in an endless cycle of pain and confusion and knowing that _no one is coming—_

 

Loki ripped himself away from the humans and reeled his _seidr_ back into himself as fast as he could, taking stock of his surroundings again. Valkyrie and Maximoff had both remained standing, although the former looked uneasy and the latter slightly ill. Captain America and Iron Man, who had both been taking cover behind a new lab table, were shaking their heads dizzily as though the fragmented thousand-year-old memories weren’t merging well with their young ones. The archer had fallen to his knees, looking like he’d just attempted to swallow a live obedience disk.

 

Speaking of… Loki (not frantically, and if he was ever accused of doing so, he would fervently deny it) turned to where his brother had been standing a few moments ago. Thor was also on his knees, clutching at his head as lightning spritzed beneath his skin. He was muttering words to himself, and Loki caught “Stark,” and “Valkyrie,” and “Loki,” and “No, please,” before he made himself stop listening.

 

Just as the humans stumbled to their feet, Thor opened his eye.

 

Loki’s brother’s gaze was confused, dazed, and bone-tired, but humor and lightning danced deep below the surface, forever intertwined.

 

 _This_ was Loki’s brother. Thor was back.

 

“Loki?” Thor croaked, and Loki will forever deny any and every accusation that he shed a few tears when his brother spoke his name again.

 

Stark made an exaggerated groaning sound as he climbed to his feet. His faceplate retracted and he smirked around his black eye. “Good to have you back, Point Break.”

 

Thor’s body language radiated confusion. Valkyrie, as though she had dealt with brainwashed-then-freed gods all the time, strode right up to Thor and offered him her hand. “Welcome back, Your Majesty.”

 

Thor, brow furrowed still, accepted the hand up and, to his credit, only swayed a bit once he was on his feet. His hands flexed and he surveyed the state of the room with a frown. “What happened—did I—?”

 

“Nothing happened,” Stark interrupted smoothly. “You freaked out a little, then you calmed down.”

 

Thor’s gaze turned frantic and went towards Loki. “Thanos? What happened—did you get them?”

 

 _Them_. Loki hadn’t forgotten about the pressing matter of a headcount, but he knew that not many remained compared to Asgard’s former might. A few hundred, maybe less. Thanos had killed half the population outright, but many more had died from exposure, thirst, and infection. They had been imprisoned in a too-small cell for months, and according to the short conversation Loki had had with Heimdall, Valkyrie had convinced the Hulk to revert to Banner, who had less of a chance of eating all their meager rations in one day. Thanos had barely fed them enough to keep the children alive.

 

There were many sick, many hospitalized, a few recently dead due to complications. Loki didn’t tell Thor that, though.

 

“Yes. They’re safe.”

 

“All of them?”

 

Loki’s solemn expression told it all. Thor’s face crumpled, but smoothed out. “How did we get out?”

 

“How much do you remember?” Loki asked carefully. He didn’t want to reopen the too-raw wounds, but Thor would figure it out, if his own ravaged mind didn’t heal enough for him to remember regardless.

 

“Most of it,” Thor said, doing a remarkable job at hiding his emotions that was practically flawless, or would have been, if Loki hadn’t been seeing through his masks for centuries. His brother was attempting to conceal the raw terror that accompanied the thought of Thanos—Loki knew, because he had been doing the same thing these past six years. But Loki also knew that if he didn’t tell Thor whatever he didn’t remember, he’d push and push, or perhaps even ask someone else. “I remember Asgard,” He said. “And the Tesseract, and the…”

 

Thor’s voice tremored. “I remember you telling me stories to distract from… him. And the Maw’s speeches, and not knowing your name. I remember…”

 

Thor’s expression shuttered. “It doesn’t matter. I need to see our people; I need to—”

 

“Hell no,” Valkyrie interrupted, a sour expression on her face that was probably there to mask any concern that she felt. “Lackey and I already took care of that. You look like you just took a one-way trip to Muspelheim.”

 

“You haven’t slept properly in months.” Loki agreed, already reaching to take his brother by the arm. “Actually, you haven’t slept properly since your fiasco with the Mind Stone and your asking Odin permission to search the cosmos for the Infinity Stones.”

 

Captain America choked on his own saliva. “That was almost three _years_ ago!”

 

“Don’t look at me,” Valkyrie said when Stark looked her way. “I’ve been in his presence for about a week total.”

 

Thor squinted at her. “Is that including when you put the—” Uncertainty filtered through Thor’s expression, and he clapped a hand to his neck. Panic flashed across his face and he looked frantically towards Valkyrie, who seemed to understand Thor’s dilemma.

 

“No, no, no! Relax!” She said. “Shit, I dropped the remote. Where’d it go…” She narrowed her gaze to a certain pile of rubble, then announced, “A-ha!” She strode over and snatched up a black remote that Loki recognized as the remote for the obedience disk. Before Thor could freak himself out more (which he was well on the way to doing), she tossed it to him.

 

Thor studied the remote for a moment before looking up. “Which button is it?”

 

“What?” Valkyrie asked. “You did it—”

 

Her expression cleared and she shook her head. “Never mind. Here, let me.”

 

Thor gave it back and she hit the proper button, releasing the bitter teeth of the Grandmaster’s crude technology from his flesh. Thor pulled a face at it, then looked towards his Midgardian friends that, try as he might, Loki could not understand his brother’s attachment to. They were fleas on the fleas on the barest branches of Yggdrasil, their lives inconsequential to the fate of the universe. They would be dead in the blink of an eye of a being Thor’s age, not even that—he could have fallen asleep and missed their entire lives. And yet their backwater planet was the epicenter of the universe, as four Infinity Stones had touched its surface in the past few years.

 

Thor smiled. “It’s good to see you again.”

 

Stark tapped his chest and the suit crawled back over his body, retreating back into the glowing reactor on his chest just as Maximoff helped Barton to his feet. The archer looked dizzy, and the witchling didn’t look much better. With a half-assed wave at Thor, they both helped each other out of the room. After casting a concerned look at the two, the Captain grinned unabashedly at Thor. “Maybe we should catch up.”

 

“No!” Valkyrie interrupted. Loki had been about to, but it certainly saved him some amount of face for not having to intercede on his brother’s behalf again and come off as _concerned_. “No, no, no. Lackey already said it—you are going to sleep for two hundred years, and _then_ you can talk to them.”

 

“They’ll be dead by then,” Thor said petulantly, and Loki smirked inwardly at the shocked expressions on the Midgardians’ faces. They looked as though they legitimately believed that Thor could sleep for two hundred years with no interruption. They weren’t entirely wrong, for Thor had been known to sleep for ridiculously long amounts of times after being injured, but his brother probably couldn’t do that anymore, what with the sheer amount of power running through his veins. If he really wanted to, Thor could go without sleep for a century. But not in his current state of mind.

 

“Let’s go.” Loki told him, grasping his brother’s wrist and stealthily avoiding the gashes cut into his wrists by the chains. “End of discussion.”

 

Thor opened his mouth to protest before pressing a hand to his head and wincing. “Fine.”

 

\---

 

The haze of sleep was a fog over Thor’s eyes, and it took him a moment to realize he was dreaming.

 

It occurred to him that he should have known earlier, as his field of vision was complete again. He was standing in the field in Norway, moisture leaking into his boots, where Hela had murdered his father and shattered his hammer; where Odin had told him of the power thrumming within him, as well as other things that Thor’s fragmented memory couldn’t recall. The grass was still wet with dew, and the sun had yet to burn away the mist of early morning.

 

Thor could see his father—he vaguely wondered if Odin’s spirit ever left this place, or if he eternally stood on the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea, waiting for one of his sons to arrive seeking advice and guidance. He suspected that his mother had given Odin a severe verbal lashing, and that he would be avoiding her for about a hundred years.

 

“My son,” Odin said, not turning to face him. “You have wandered far.”

 

Thor studied the horizon for whatever his father was looking at, but the white, soupy fog didn’t recede. “I have nowhere else to be.”

 

“Have you not saved your people? Your brother?” Odin asked him. “Have you not brought those who remained to Midgard, to your Avengers?”

 

“Well, sort of, but—”

 

“Have you not destroyed Asgard in your attempt at saving it?” Odin snapped, his tone changing. The wind picked up, growing bleak and chilled, accentuating his father’s cold tone. “Have you not killed thousands in your desperate attempt at playing king? Hela would have at least saved them. You should’ve stayed on that hellish planet. At least then you would have been _useful_.”

  
  
The words were like a slap to the face. Sometime in his father’s harsh tirade, Odin had morphed from his normal-looking self to the sleek and black-clothed Hela. She turned to face him, her face outlined in cruel lines, and smirked. “You didn’t really think a fire giant could defeat _me_? I’m the goddess of death–it has no power over me. And the power of Asgard in your pathetically dead subjects has flowed back to me.

 

“I’m coming for you, _Odinson_.” She purred. “And soon, you’ll be missing more than an eye.”

 

When Thor blinked, he was no longer standing in Norway, feeling wetness leak into his boots and an empty sensation in his chest. When he stepped forwards, his footsteps echoed in the vast, cavernous space of Thanos’s favorite room on the _Sanctuary II_. He had often dragged Thor out of the cell from where he had been having his… sessions with Ebony Maw and into this chamber, where he offered extended speeches of balance and death before ripping into Thor’s head anew.

 

Maw (or, as Stark had likened him, Squidward) was standing off to the side, watching Thor with hooded eyes. The bodies of his people were scattered everywhere, blaster burns scattered all over their chests. Loki hadn’t told him of his people’s fate, but Thor had feared this one in particular. Thanos was standing at the front of the room, looking through the window. “I have looked for the Stones for centuries,” He rumbled, his words burrowing into Thor’s brain like maggots. “But your accursed father and his daughter dissuaded me. Thank you for getting rid of them.”

 

“I did nothing for you.” Thor spat.

 

“But you did,” Thanos said. “I would not have been able to move on Midgard had you not doomed the legions of Asgard and your father. And you are too _weak_ to stop me.”

  
  
That word sat itself firmly in Thor’s head and latched on like a leech. _Weak,_ a voice whispered. _Weak, weak, weak_.

 

Thor’s body suddenly took on the weight of a thousand worlds. His knees buckled, and he fell to the ground. He tried to get up again, to face Thanos and tell him that he was the God of Thunder and he was proud, but the floor had swallowed up his legs. And suddenly, the bodies of his people were rising from where they had fallen, knocking him to the floor, crawling all over him and clawing at his face, his chest, crying out with broken vocal chords, “Save us,” They hissed, children desperately clutching at Thor’s shoulders as he sank further into the floor. “ _Save us, king. Save us."_

 

The ship swallowed him, but the muffled cries of the murdered Asgardians still pierced through his ears. _Save us. Save us. Save us._

 

\---

 

Thor slept for three days, and his Avengers only grew more and more restless. Valkyrie and Loki took turns sitting by his bedside in case he accidentally lashed out after waking up. The Avengers insisted on having at least one of them in the room at all times, which Valkyrie found ridiculous. They needed to sleep, and eat—or at least she assumed. She wasn’t well-versed in Midgardian biology—it had been hundreds of years since she’d even thought about it.

 

When either she or Loki were on duty, the other would be with the Asgardian people, making sure they were fed and cared for. Valkyrie took care to visit the wounded—she remembered a time where her sisters would visit her when she was wounded and thought that she would at least return the favor. A few times, a Terran healer came in and checked the bandages around Thor’s abdomen and wrists. The cuts and burns were ugly, and there were old wounds that hadn’t healed quite right.

 

It was her shift when Thor twisted in his sleep, a contorted expression overtaking his face. This had happened a few times already, and Valkyrie didn’t look up from the knife she was sharpening. Her captivity hadn’t granted her any opportunities to maintain her weapons, but she’d forced Loki to take her by the armory on their way out. She’d grabbed her knives, her Dragonfang, and Thor’s swords before Loki yanked her away.

 

She did look up, however, when Thor’s head turned sharply, pressing into the pillow, and he started muttering things like, “No,” and “I’m sorry,” and “Weak.” She carefully put the dagger away and stood up. “Thor?”

  
  
Bruce, who had been sleeping in a chair across from her, jerked awake and fell out of the chair. “Wha’s going on?” He asked disorientedly as he rubbed his head where he’d banged it against the floor.

 

As her attention was diverted, Thor’s skin broke out in lightning, reaching out for all the metal in the room. The lights flickered and then the bulbs burst, showering the room in glass. “I’m sorry,” Thor muttered again. “I’m sorry.”

 

“Thor, wake up!” Valkyrie yelled as the AI’s garbled voice came over the speakers. “Massive—surge—it off. Boss—”

 

The man with the metal suit that had introduced himself as Tony Stark burst into the room, demanding something about _what’s overloading my reactor, that shouldn’t be possible, Bruce—_ but then he caught sight of Valkyrie and Bruce crouching behind a chair. “What—”

 

He seemed to glimpse the source of the lightning before shouting, “Wake him up!”

 

“I’m _trying!”_ Valkyrie yelled back at him. The window shattered, allowing in a blast of cold winter air. “Thor!”

 

Thor’s eye shot open and he sprang off the bed into a crouch in the opposite side of the room by the doorway. The room went deathly silent as the lightning dissipated but the glow in his gaze remained as bright as ever. A knot tied itself in Valkyrie’s stomach, and she reached for the newly-sharpened dagger.

 

“Thor?” Bruce asked, rubbing absently at a burn on his arm.

 

The king took in the disheveled appearances of his teammates, the singes and scrapes. Valkyrie took in the wild and horrified look in his eyes, the pain and memories. _Nightmare_ . And probably a bad one—after all, he had just been tortured and brainwashed for half a year. It would be concerning if he _didn’t_ have nightmares.

 

He shook his head when Valkyrie moved forwards. “Your Majesty—”

 

Thor shook his head again and took one more step backwards, out the door, and disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments make me happy :). Also, if you find any errors, DON'T HESITATE to point them out! Love y'all. :) (PS. Stay tuned for some new fics coming up soon!)
> 
>  
> 
> UPDATE (May 24, approx 5PM): Chapter 11 will probably take as long as Chapter 10 did– a little more than a week. Sorry :(. Finals have just started and I'm sort of swamped. I've got a plane ride this weekend, though, so sporadically check to see if this fic updated. I might have finished it during the plane ride.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hehe... remember when I said that this would be "DEFINITELY" finished by June? Well... It's June. And I'm finished. So I didn't lie?
> 
> This chapter is 7000 words and has so much going on in it that I recommend reading each section individually, and maybe even twice. Even my beta was surprised at the amount of scenes in this chapter. 
> 
> Not mine. Marvel's.

FRIDAY’s system was fried (Tony was in a fix about that), so they had to find Thor the old-fashioned way. Steve excelled at that, despite having lived six years in the twenty-first century, but it still took them an hour to find Thor.

 

He was on the roof. Sitting right on the lip that dropped into open air. It didn’t look like he was going to go jump off or anything—he was just sitting idly, legs dangling off the edge, watching the sun rise. Steve had a jacket on, and Tony was in an old AC/DC sweatshirt, but Thor had somehow acquired the armor that he’d been wearing when they’d rescued him, and he, despite being bare-armed, didn’t seem to feel the cold December air.

 

“Thor?” Steve asked cautiously. The god angled his head in acknowledgement, but didn’t turn around. Tony muttered something to FRIDAY about telling the team to _get their Avenger-y asses up here, stat._

 

Steve was about to err on the side of caution and ask if his friend was all right, but Tony simply started forwards and plopped himself down next to Thor with an exaggerated groan. “What a night, am I right?” His expression became horrified. “Oh my God, that rhymed. Who poisoned my coffee?”

 

Thor’s shoulders twitched as he chuckled. “I think it’s morning, by now.”

 

“And as to who poisoned your coffee,” Steve said as he sat down on the other side of Thor, “It was probably DUM-E. Or Clint.”

 

“One of these is not like the other,” Tony remarked. “Oh, wait, that’s right. Comparing the two is an _insult_. To the _robot_. And he’s named DUM-E for a reason, believe me.”

 

Thor made another sound of amusement, but he was gripping the concrete lip of the roof so hard that there were cracks spiderwebbing along its surface. His eye remained fixed on the horizon. Steve pretended to ignore the slight tremors of the god’s shoulders and the bandages peeking out of the edges of his armor and wrapped around his wrists. After a moment, Thor spoke, sounding more uncertain than Steve had ever heard him. “I believe that the both of you know what it is like to be… powerless. To be laid so low that it seems easier to…”

 

“Give up.” Tony finished without a hint of sarcasm, to Steve’s surprise. Steve wasn’t sure when exactly the rest of the team had arrived, but the soft scuff of boots against concrete alerted him of someone else’s presence. They were all standing by the door that lead to the stairs. Loki stood off to the side, listening. Steve put a finger to his lips and turned back towards Thor.

 

“Yes,” Thor agreed. “And I have been rendered helpless more times this past year than I have in my other five thousand years of life. And that includes the various stunts Loki pulled when we were children.” The slump of Thor’s shoulders, the tone of his voice, both speak of defeat and hardships that Steve’s friend had experienced thousands of years before he had even been thought of. “And even despite the hardships you faced, I doubt your father’s last words to you were telling you of your evil sister whom he had imprisoned for millennia and who thirsted for nothing but death and anarchy throughout the universe.”

 

Steve froze. Thor took a deep breath. “Hela was… unstoppable. A force of nature all on her own, and I suppose that Death herself held a certain sway over the universe more than thunder ever could. I believe it is said that Rome was an empire built on slavery? I suppose you could say that Asgard was a civilization built upon lies.”

 

Steve was breathless. Tony only managed a “Hell of a family tree,” before falling silent.

 

Bits of concrete tumbled from where they had broken off due to Thor’s grip, clattering their way down to another balcony. Thor was still resolutely watching the sunrise, as though it would be easier to tell the story of he didn’t have to see his teammates’ faces. “Hela invaded Asgard, shattered my hammer, and cast me out to a planet on the very edge of the universe. Valkyrie brought me in. The overlord…” Thor seemed to struggle with the name, and he furrowed his brow.

 

“The Grandmaster,” Loki supplied softly from where he stood in the shadows. Thor didn’t seem surprised at his presence. He simply continued on.

 

“Right. He forced me to compete in his gladiatorial combat, where I supposedly could only leave if I defeated his Champion.” Thor pulled a face. “Of course, it was the Hulk, who had been living there for two years and killing anyone who faced him in the arena. We fought, I won, and then the Grandmaster incapacitated me. I escaped with Banner, Loki, and Valkyrie, started a revolution, and went back to Asgard.”

 

The sun’s rays were beginning to touch the tops of the skyscrapers in the distance, dazzling Steve’s eyes, but Thor watched as though it were nothing. And if there was a hint of moisture in his eyes, well, nobody was judging, least of all Steve. His tone was brief and flippant, as though pretending it didn’t matter to him that it would make it easier to tell. “Loki got my remaining people on a ship and they escaped while Hela cut out my eye and the Hulk fought her pet wolf. Then a fire demon was released, which killed Hela and destroyed the entire planet.”

 

Any response that Steve had been planning ground to a halt in his head. Jesus. Asgard, the place that Thor, the old Thor, the one with long hair and a booming laugh and a hammer nobody could lift, had told about only in private. The place of golden halls and such ancient people that Thor had told stories of fighting on Earth while “The ones who worshipped the other pagan gods—Zeus was one, I believe, who was really just made up when Loki cast an illusion spell on me to make me look old” were still around. Thor had fought on this planet when the _ancient Greeks_ had been around. It was just… gone. Poof. Thor had nowhere else to go—essentially, he was homeless.

 

“Then, a few hours after we escaped, we were surrounded by Thanos’s war craft, and, well…” Thor shrugged and released the concrete ledge when it let out an audible _crack_. “I think you know what happens from there.”

 

Thor absently rubbed his wrists and Steve caught sight of the half-healed lines running up Thor’s arms and disappearing into his shirt.

 

After a moment of silence, Tony blurted out, “What happened to your hair?”

 

Thor furrowed his brow for a moment and huffed out a breath of frustration. “I can’t remember.”

 

“You can’t—” Steve began to repeat incredulously before a sharp kick to his ribs cut him off. Natasha cut her fingers across her throat in a clear _drop it_ gesture. Steve raised his hands in surrender.

 

“You told me some creepy old man cut it off.” Bruce said. “On the Quinjet.”

 

Thor nodded, still rubbing his wrists as though _he couldn’t believe the shackles were off_. As though he needed a physical reminder that he wasn’t on Thanos’s ship anymore.

 

“I’m sorry.” Steve blurted out. Thor finally turned his gaze from the sunset to give Steve a questioning look. “We should’ve checked in on you, we should’ve made sure that you weren’t having problems. If we’d tried to contact you, maybe you wouldn’t have been t—”

 

Thor’s expression shuttered, but he managed a smile and clapped Steve on the shoulder. Despite being wounded and underfed, Thor’s grip was still three times stronger than anyone else that Steve had ever felt. “It’s not your fault. I was in the wind for three years, and two of them were spent wandering around the universe, picking fights with Kree purists, and only occasionally almost dying. Not too exciting.”

 

“Kree- _what nows?”_ Tony demanded, sounding delighted.

 

Thor gave him an odd look before his expression cleared. “Right. I had forgotten you all are so isolated. The Kree are a proud warrior race, mostly peaceful. But some of them call themselves purists and wish to return to their glory days of murdering Xandarians by the millions. They’re great fun to fight.”

 

“I don’t wanna know.” Rhodey decided, and Clint countered him. “You kidding? I _totally_ wanna know. Do they shoot arrows?”

 

Thor smirked. “Maybe a few thousand years ago. Now they rely on plasma-powered cannons and high-speed X-Ships. They’re quite annoying.”

 

“Plasma-powered cannons?” Tony demanded. “Kal-El, you’ve been holding out on me. We’re having this conversation later.”

 

“You are most certainly _not_ having this conversation later.” Natasha announced. “Thor, I will not have you giving Tony access to high-powered technology because he _will_ blow something up.”

 

Thor winced. “Unfortunately—or fortunately, I suppose—most weaponry the Kree and the Nova Corps use is very prone to going _boom_.”

 

“Shame.” Rhodey commented in a voice that made it quite clear that it wasn’t a shame to anyone but Tony.

 

Said man, the highly-regarded inventor and genius as well as Iron Man, stuck his tongue out at Black Widow. “Party pooper.”

 

“Responsible adult.” Nat retorted, and Steve laughed outright at the betrayed expression on Tony’s face.

 

Stark rounded on Steve. “I thought we were supposed to be friends now.” He complained. “You think the chances are so high of me blowing something up that you won’t let me have any fun?”

 

“Yes,” Steve told him. Thor made an amused sound at the back of his throat.

 

“Hey, don’t you start.” Tony said to Thor. The sky had bled into a million different colors, and the city was growing brighter and brighter as more people turned on their lights and began their day. “You broke my AI.”

 

Thor winced and stared at his bandaged wrists. Lightning sparked briefly at his fingertips before he closed his fists. “Sorry about that.”

 

Wanda’s eyes flashed, but Tony only laughed. “You kidding? That was _awesome_. Nothing has ever overloaded the reactor for this building—it should be impossible. Do you know how much energy you produced?”

 

Thor offered him a blank look. “He tends to just light up and then blast whatever is in front of him to pieces.” Loki pointed out. “It’s quite effective.”

 

Tony ignored the trickster. “Dude, you’ve got enough juice to power the entire Eastern Seaboard _at least_.”

 

“And that’s… good, I suppose.” Thor commented, sounding unsure of what Tony was insinuating.

 

“And now this conversation is over with.” Natasha announced, clapping her hands together briskly and gently resting a hand on Thor’s shoulder. The god stiffened minutely, but she didn’t remove her hand, and after a moment, he leaned into the touch. “We aren’t using our resident Asgardian as a battery, Tony. Don’t make that face at me, I know that’s probably not what you meant, but that’s how it came across. Can it. Thor, when’s the last time you ate?”

 

He shrugged. Loki oh-so-helpfully supplied, “Last I saw, about a month ago.”

 

Steve choked on his own saliva. “A _month_?”

 

“An argument could be made for two.”

 

“Not helping, Loki.” Thor told his brother.

 

Bruce made an exasperated sound. “Thor, I know you didn’t even eat at all on the ship, so please go eat before you fall down.” He seemed to reconsider his statement and amended himself. “Actually, scratch that. I’m coming down with you, and you are going to eat.”

 

“I’m coming, too.” Nat said, offering a hand up to Thor. “Let’s go, big guy.”

 

“I don’t need to—” Thor began to protest, but Black Widow shut him up with a look. “Did you actually just try to lie to me?”

 

“Eek,” Clint commented. “Don’t worry, bud. I’ll come and protect you from the crazed couple.”

 

Bruce turned bright red and Natasha lifted a cool eyebrow. “Oh, really.”

 

“Yeah, really.”

 

“And Steve and I will come to protect you once Clint is thrown out the window!” Tony finished a little too brightly, clapping Thor on the back. The god rolled his eye (singular—Steve was still getting used to that) and accepted Natasha’s hand up.

 

Wanda’s eyes flashed as she seemed to grasp what Natasha was trying to do. The girl was always quick on the uptake, whether it was social cues or reading the emotions in the room. “And the rest of us will go get some rest. Right, Sam?” She asked forcefully.

 

“Right.” Sam agreed. “Let’s go, Rhodes and Vision. Oh, wait, Vision’s gone. What? OK, Loki—”

 

The trickster was gone. “All right, we’re outta here.” Sam announced. “Have fun eating dinner, or breakfast, or whatever. What time is it, anyway—”

 

Wanda slammed the door shut. “Well then,” Tony said, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. “Who wants pancakes?”

 

\---

 

Pancakes were a _terrible_ idea.

 

Halfway through making the batter, DUM-E accidentally flung a spatula covered in flour right at Tony’s head, covering his face and shoulders in a fine dusting of powder. The billionaire then got a mischievous glint in his eye, and all Steve could manage was, “Tony, _no—”_ before he grabbed the entire bag of flour, scooped up a handful, and flung it at Natasha.

 

“Oh, you’ll regret that, old man.” She told him before snagging the bowl of half-finished batter and flicking a scoop at both Clint and Tony at the same time. “Hey!” The archer complained, then grabbed the egg carton. Uh-oh.

 

It all went downhill from there. Soon, all the Avengers were covered in various breakfast materials, and especially the flour. Oh, the flour. Why did Tony even _have_ that much flour? Steve was pretty sure that he’d never get it out of his hair, and everyone would think that Captain America had become a cocaine addict.

 

Natasha had cracked an egg right on Clint’s head, and the yolk was slowly oozing through his hair. Bruce had done his best to remain out of it, but halfway through, Tony had tossed the box of baking soda right at him, which stuck to his face and made him look like a crude Joker cosplayer. Thor mostly stayed out of it, content with sitting on a countertop and laughing at them, but sometimes someone would fling a handful of flour or an egg at him (mostly Natasha and Bruce—the latter had seemingly spent more time with Thor than the rest of them recently, and the former was too good of a judge of character to make the wrong move). Thor mostly let the flour hit him, although he batted the eggs out of the air, usually towards Tony, who had made an alliance with his bots and had begun constructing egg-catapults out of spoons for DUM-E and U to man. That… wasn’t going to end well.

 

Steve contented himself with ducking the dry handfuls of cereal that Clint threw with deadly accuracy. (Seriously, how did the archer throw that stuff with any sort of success? It was like throwing dandelion fluff.) Bruce tapped out, saying something about a lack of clean clothing, and Tony mutinously tossed an egg at him as he went to sit next to Thor.

 

“Really?” Bruce asked, but Tony only tossed another egg up and down, smirking. (That was, until Natasha snatched it out of the air and smashed it on his head. Then he wasn’t smiling anymore.)

 

Breathlessly from laughing too hard, Steve called out, raising his hands in the air. “Truce! Truce! Before Tony kills us all with utensils and intelligent robots.”

 

“C’mon, Cap,” Tony whined. “It was just getting good.”

 

Natasha’s blonde hair was dusted with flour, as well as her (Clint’s, Steve thought) T-shirt and leggings. She dusted her hands off, climbed off Clint’s shoulders, and placed her hands on her hips. “Well.”

 

“Well indeed.” Bruce agreed amiably. “Who’s cleaning this up?”

 

“DUM-E started it.” Tony said stubbornly, seemingly not caring that he sounded like a three-year-old caught fighting with his sibling. “He can clean it up.”

 

“Or pour a smoothie on it.” Clint noted, attempting to rub some of the egg out of his hair. “Gross, Nat, really?”

 

“Man up, Barton.” Tony told him, a faux-serious look on his face. “And don’t insult DUM-E’s smoothies. Not unless you want to drink one.”

 

“Do we have anything left to actually make pancakes?” Steve asked, picking up a bag of flour only for both ends to open up and all the remaining powder to pour out onto the floor. “Or are we going to resort to cereal and Pop-Tarts?”

 

“Well, Pepper mass-orders this stuff, because this happens more than you’d think. Largely due to a sticky fifteen-year-old.” Tony said, picking up an empty bottle of vegetable oil and tossing it in the direction of the trash can. “But I think we went through all of it.”

 

“Pop-Tarts it is!” Clint announced cheerfully, climbing on top of the fridge for a better view, probably—yeah, Steve didn’t know why. “Why is there a bag of opened chocolate chips up here?”

 

Tony shrugged. “I’ve got a Spider-Kid with a knack for sweets and climbing things. Don’t ask me.”

 

Clint threw the bag at him.

 

“You up for Pop-Tarts, Thor?” Natasha asked as she bent down to rummage through the cabinets. “We’ll order some real food once all the restaurants are open.”

 

Bruce hopped down from the counter to help Natasha look and Steve stepped up to Tony’s side where he was rummaging around and throwing empty containers towards the trash. “I missed this,” Steve said to him, and Tony glanced up and smiled. “Me too, Cap.”

 

Thor shifted in response to Natasha’s question. “I don’t—I can’t exactly place the name.”

 

Steve had a flashback to Bucky, asking him simple things, like _what was the floor that we lived on?_ and _what division was I in before you rescued me?_ and _what were those candy bar things that you used to eat called? I can’t remember the name._

 

Natasha just rolled with it. “Rectangular pastries covered in icing—a-ha!” She pulled a box out of a cabinet, blew the flour off of it, and held it up. “Pop-Tarts.”

 

“ _My_ Pop-Tarts.” Clint corrected as he reached from his perch on the fridge and snatched the box away from her. She simply grasped his wrist and pulled, sending him tumbling off the refrigerator and onto the ground. She retained her hold on the Pop-Tart box.

 

“Hey,” Clint complained as they all laughed. Recognition had sparked in Thor’s eyes and Steve let himself breathe a sigh of relief.

 

“So, how are we going to get this cleaned up in—” Tony checked his watch. “Twenty-eight minutes? DUM-E, _no_ .” He told the bot as it shoved a smoothie towards him, spilling some on his already-filthy shirt. “Go give some to Clint. He wants to try one.”

 

DUM-E cheerfully rolled over to Clint and upendended the entire thing on the archer’s head.

 

“Thanks,” Clint said dryly, wiping some of the raspberry sludge out of his eyes. “Delicious.”

 

The bot chirped happily and went off to the blender to make another one. “Blueberry this time,” Tony called after him. “Blueberries stain.”

 

“That’s wasteful.” Bruce noted as he pulled out a few clean cups and poured some orange juice.

 

“That’s _genius_.” Clint corrected.

 

“It’s going on your head, there, Hawkeye.” Natasha told him as she stuck a few Pop-Tarts in the toaster.

 

Clint shrugged. “I think I’d look good with blue hair.”

 

“Laura would _love_ that.” Steve told him. “It would match your eyes.” 

 

“The _kids_ would love that.” Clint corrected. Bruce pulled a face. “Your _kids_ would try to eat your hair.”

 

“That is not an image I needed today. Thanks, Bruce.” Tony called over his shoulder. “Jesus, how many cartons of eggs did you _use_ , Steve?”

 

“It wasn’t me,” Steve defended. “It was your bots. And Natasha.”

 

“I admit to nothing.”

 

Thor furrowed his brow, his amused smile vanishing. “Natasha, I think the Pop-Tarts are—”

 

The fire alarm went off shrilly and the sprinklers engaged, spraying everyone in ice-cold water. “FRIDAY!” Tony yelled, attempting to cover his head. “Turn it off! Turn it off now, Jesus Christ!”

 

“Sorry, boss,” The female AI said, not sounding apologetic at all as the shrieking alarm turned off and the water stopped jetting. Now, the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes were covered in a goopy, sticky, flour-y mess. “Miss Potts implemented serious fire safety protocols after you nearly set yourself on fire for the fifth time this month.”

 

“This _month_ ?” Steve repeated incredulously as Tony protested to his AI. “This was _Pop-Tarts_ in the _toaster!_ We weren’t even near my lab! Does Pepper have no faith in me?”

 

Even Clint, who was busy trying to fend off DUM-E trying to give him the blueberry smoothie he’d made, gave Tony a deadpan look. “I think you know the answer to tha—DUM-E, c’mon, man! I thought my hair looked fine when it was covered in egg yolk and raspberry smoothie, you didn’t have to put blueberries in it _too—”_

 

“Heads up, Thor,” Natasha called, pulling a Pop-Tart from the toaster. “It’s hot."

 

Thor caught it with ease and studied it for a moment. “I remember these.”

 

“Awesome!” Clint yelped. “Now get—this—robot—off me!”

 

“I think he’s happy where he is.” Tony decided, and DUM-E chirped cheerfully from his position on top of Clint. Bruce shrugged. “Doesn’t look medically serious to me.”

 

“Seriously?”

 

Thor rolled his eye and hopped off the counter. He grasped DUM-E by his neck and lifted him off Clint with his left hand alone, his right still holding the Pop-Tart. Clint rolled away, gasping for breath. “Thanks, man.”

 

“No problem.” Thor told him as he deposited DUM-E and his empty smoothie glasses a safe distance from the marksman.

 

“This has devolved.” Bruce pointed out.

 

“Most definitely,” Tony agreed. “DUM-E, _no_ —”

 

Steve watched a soft smile overtake Thor’s face as he watched his teammates fool around and act like a _family_ for the first time in years. Yeah, Steve thought, the god was going to be just fine.

 

\---

 

There were still bad days. Days where the lights in Steve’s room flickered from Thor’s nightmares, days where he hardly spoke but couldn’t bear to be in a room alone for too long, days where a bright conversation was interrupted by Thor not being able to remember something—a name, a face, a long-ago battle.

 

The Avengers did their best to help. Tony managed to design a room that would absorb Thor’s lightning without damaging the building’s inner workings and enabled FRIDAY to wake him up if his dreams were growing violent. On the days where Thor couldn’t be alone, he wasn’t—whether it was Natasha and Steve baking cookies with him, Clint playing Mario Kart (and losing—Thor likened it to a few space battles he’d been in), or Bruce and Tony just sitting in a lab and quietly (or loudly, in Tony’s case) narrating what they were doing or arguing with their bots. When his memory lapsed, if they knew what Thor was talking about, they’d supply the word that Thor was searching for. When they couldn’t, they urged him to write whatever it was on a piece of paper next to his bed.

 

Loki was in the wind, too afraid of the government apprehending him and implicating the rest of Asgard, but unfailingly, every morning, in Loki’s sloping handwriting, was whatever Thor hadn’t been able to remember. The word or phrase was usually accompanied by the words _idiot_ or _moron_ , but Thor smiled all the same.

 

The remaining Asgardians were settled in the fifty acres around the Avengers Compound that Tony had built but then practically abandoned in favor of the Tower. Thor was with them a lot, but both Valkyrie and Loki had insisted on him taking it easy for a few months. None of the Asgardians complained.

 

A few weeks after the fight with Thanos, Thor visited the UN and gave them such a severe verbal lashing that Steve was _positive_ Loki had had some part in it. He disparaged then for forcing the Avengers to choose between retirement, outlawry, or practical enslavement. The whole purpose the Avengers were able to work as a whole, cohesive unit, he reasoned, was because they could prevent death and terror in every country _any way they could._ But the Avengers couldn’t solve anything, he said, if they were forced to wait out every problem while politicians squabbled over who gets to decide if the problem is Avengers-worthy or not. Splitting them down the middle and forcing many of civilians’ best protectors to hide in the shadows only put more people at risk. Thor had already lost one planet. He wouldn’t lose another, and he told the UN officials so.

 

Even Secretary Ross had been speechless. King T’Challa of Wakanda, who sat next to Steve in the back of the room, muttered to Steve, “I like him.”

 

Steve watched Thor, standing up kingly and confident and cutting down every argument that Steve’s oppressors put in front of him, and Steve smiled. “He’s hard to dislike.”

 

“Who is that behind him? A guard? She looks rather young to protect him alone.”

 

Steve focused on Valkyrie, dressed in her Asgardian leathers, fingering the hilt of her sword and looking so _utterly bored_ that she would walk out of the room for a bottle of strong alcohol. He smirked.

 

“She’s a thousand years older than Thor. Hell of a fighter.” At T’Challa’s incredulous look, Steve huffed a quiet laugh. “And a hell of a drinker. I wouldn’t pit her against Okoye.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Valkyrie would snap her in two. No offense to Okoye, of course, but Valkyrie has been fighting for thousands of years, same as Thor.”

 

Valkyrie turned her head and stared Steve and T’Challa square in the face. She angled an eyebrow. Steve winced. “They also have enhanced hearing.”

 

Valkyrie made a discreetly rude gesture and turned back to picking her nails.

 

“No,” T’Challa said, shaking his head with a slightly terrified look on his face. “I will not introduce her to Okoye. Or Nakia. Or Shuri. Especially not Shuri.”

 

Steve had met T’Challa’s irascible and irrepressible sister. “Probably a good idea.”

 

(They ended up meeting anyway. It didn’t go well for the rest of them.)

 

\---

 

Two days after the UN officially repealed the Sokovia Accords and pardoned all of the “Ex-vengers” (including Ant-Man, who was in hiding with his daughter), the Avengers had their first major battle.

 

Doctor Doom (Tony had made _endless_ wisecracks about the name for hours after they first heard it, to Steve’s annoyance) had an army of robots and a demand that Tony Stark pay him ten million dollars lest he unleash the “Doombots” on the city.

 

The _electric_ Doombots. Honestly, Tony was starting to think that all these villains were idiots. This guy was supposed to be a _doctor_ , as in, has a _PhD_.

 

So they got Thor, stuck him on top of a building with Tony and a fake $10 million check, and waited.

 

It didn’t take Doom long to show up. One of his robots held him around the waist as they hovered in the air in front of the random building that the Avengers had picked. There weren’t too many of them—definitely not upwards of one hundred—and Tony cringed at their craftsmanship. Ten-year-old Tony could’ve done a better job constructing the crude robots than Doom had.

 

“Hey, Mr. Armageddon!” Tony yelled, allowing the speakers built into his suit to project his voice the few dozen yards.

 

“That’s the best you could come up with, Stark?” Clint muttered through the comms, clearly irritated at his position across the street from the action. He was with Peter and Vision, who were the only other two Avengers, besides Steve, who were available at such short notice.

 

“It’s _Doctor Doom_ ,” The villain growled. “Give me my money, Stark.”

 

“Right, Monsieur Death!” Tony called back cheerfully. “I was just wondering—are those all the robots you have? Because if they are, then maybe we should just take you down _instead_ of paying you my hard-earned money?”

 

Doom’s face contorted into a snarl and he gestured with one hand. About a hundred more robots flew up from some concealed point and hovered up behind the original hundred.

 

“Don’t kill him,” Steve said in his ear. “We want to know where he got his materials.”

 

“I know,” Tony said lowly. “Stop distracting me.”

 

He threw his arms wide open and the ground started to vibrate as Thor channeled his electricity. “Awesome, Señor Extinction! Why don’t you come down here so I can give you this nice fat paycheck?”

 

Doom’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why don’t you come up here, Stark?”

 

Tony glanced at Thor, who shook his head. He wouldn’t be able to spare Tony from the blast. “Into your massive horde of robots? No thank you. Come here or don’t get it at all.”

 

Doom glared, but gestured for the Doombot to put him down.

 

As soon as his feet touched down on the pavement, Doom narrowed his eyes at Thor, whose arms were starting to spark. “Who is—”

 

“Have you seen the news recently?” Tony asked. “Because if you had, you wouldn’t have brought your _electric robots_ to a fight with a god with power over _lightning_.”

 

Doom’s face turned horrified just as Thor’s eye smoldered and his entire body broke out in lightning. The day turned overcast and then stormy and with a crack of thunder and a flick of Thor’s hand, the Doombots were seizing up and then falling to the street, smoking.

 

“Damn.”

 

“Come on, man!” Clint complained. “I wanted to kill, like, _one_.”

 

“Snooze you lose, old man.” Tony called as he activated his repulsors. “Thor, you want a lift?”

 

Thor eyed the distance to the ground speculatively, then shook his head. He jumped off the edge and landed on the pavement forty feet below. “All right then.” Tony said.

 

“Isn’t Thor technically the old man here?” Peter wondered as he crawled upside down from the building he and Clint had been hiding out in, away from the danger. “He’s, like, a billion years older than anyone else here.”

 

“Kid, stop invalidating my insults,” Tony told him as he set down next to Thor. “They’re practically all I’ve got left. You all have already eaten me out of house and home.”

 

“Sorry, Mr. Stark,” Peter said sheepishly. “Oh, _shit_!” 

 

“Language,” Tony said automatically, and next to him, Thor choked on a laugh. “You know what? I’ve given up.”

 

“I’m supposed to be at lunch with Aunt May in twenty minutes!” Peter took a running leap off the side of the building and shot a web, whizzing towards Queens. “Bye, Mr. Stark!”

 

“Bye, kid,” Tony called, amused.

 

Thor watched Peter as he went. “He reminds me of someone I knew when we were young.”

 

“Who?” Tony asked as Steve said something about being headed down to them now.

 

Thor smiled sadly. “Loki.”

 

Somehow, Tony couldn’t bring himself to be mad about that comparison. “What, the spider powers?”

 

Thor glanced over, his metal eyepatch glinting in the sun. “The innocence.”

 

And what could Tony say to that?

 

\---

 

Three weeks after the Sokovia Accords were repealed, the Black Order returned.

 

They landed at the Compound, where Thor was visiting his people and checking in, which he did every few days. The Asgardians were camped out temporarily there while Thor completed negotiations with the UN over what land they could allot for the refugees. The small (well, small compared to the _Statesman II_ and the envoy ship which Loki had destroyed) ship had lowered itself over the Compound and hovered there.

 

Two minutes later, only after Thor, Tony and a few other Avengers that were in the compound (Natasha, Steve, and Wanda, plus Loki and Valkyrie) had all gathered in the shadow of the ship, a blue beam descended, dropping two aliens—both of which Tony recognized.

 

One of them was Proxima Midnight, the female who had briefly held Loki captive when Thor had been psycho and brain-washed. The other was Squidward himself.

 

Instead of going on a long-winded speech that Loki had mentioned that Ebony Maw loved so much, he fixed his dark eyes on Thor and they stayed there. Tony glanced at the demigod.

 

The god was clearly uneasy—his body language was a mix of anger and fear. His lightning hadn’t made a true appearance yet, but sparks ran their way up his arms. Loki stood by his shoulder, Valkyrie on the other side. Both of the other Asgardians’ stances were angled slightly towards Thor, and they’d never admit it, but they were clearly ready to jump in front of him.

 

Despite the circumstances, Tony smirked. Who knew—the drunken warrioress and the estranged brother were both fiercely protective of their king. Although, to be fair, nobody wanted history to repeat itself in this respect.

 

“Champion of Thanos,” Voldemort called across the few dozen meters between them. “You have taken long enough to carry out your duties.”

 

“And what duties were those, Maw?” Thor replied evenly in a tone that was only betrayed by the slight tremor in his hands.

 

“The retrieval of the Stones, of course. The Time Stone and the Mind Stone, both of which _our_ master has sought for centuries.”

 

Tony didn’t miss the way that Squidward stressed that it was _our_ master. Thor didn’t, either. “I serve no master. And especially not yours.”

 

“But you will,” Maw said, an ugly smirk twisting his features. “And you _do_ . You have, after all, discovered the owners of the two Stones, yes?”

 

Taking Thor’s silence as a yes, Ebony Maw kept going, that damned smirk persisting, and _holy hell_ , Tony wanted to blast that freaking smile right off his face. “So you have fulfilled your duties, and you may now return to our master.”

 

“He will do no such thing,” Loki growled, a set of knives shimmering into existence as he flicked his wrists. Thor’s brother stepped forwards and Valkyrie did the same. Their blades shone in the bright sunlight as they both moved in front of Thor, who looked too muddled to protest. Tony sympathized with him—the poor guy looked like he’d been smacked between the eyes (eye?).

 

Proxima Midnight cackled and aimed her energy spear straight at Thor, but Loki threw a knife right at her, which forced her to step aside. The blast went wide.

 

“Come, Champion,” Maw ordered harshly before flicking his hand and tearing two huge trees out of the ground. Snow tumbled from their branches onto the ground and the bare, stiff branches pointed directly at the Avengers like jagged spears. “Or I will be forced to perform the breaking here. I do not think it would be pleas—”

 

Loki flung a dagger right at Maw’s face, and he made a disappointed sound. “Fine,” He said. “I’ll deal with you now.”

 

With a wave of his hand, the trees were flying towards them, nearly impaling Steve and Tony. Tony threw the Captain out of the line of fire and tapped his chest, activating the nanotech. Wanda opened her palms, red light unfurling and reflecting off the pale snow. Proxima laughed again before launching herself at the girl.

 

Thank God that Vision was in Senegal, giving some presentation of the new purpose of the Avengers to the natives. Small comforts. No Infinity Stone for them. Today, at least.

 

Squidward twisted his hands and formed a writhing, snake-like ball of energy. Loki’s eyes glowed with fury when he glimpsed it, and he frantically turned back towards Thor, who was still standing limply in the middle of the field. His eye had begun to glow, but he was shaking. Afraid. _Shit._

 

“Thor, _move—_ ” Loki began to yell, running frantically. Valkyrie picked herself up from where she’d been flung by the trees after shoving Natasha out of the way. Steve and Natasha were by the edge of the clearing, picking themselves up off the ground. There was splintered wood everywhere and the snow was mixed with mud. Wanda and Proxima were still going at it, Wanda with her magic and Proxima with her weirdass spear. Wanda was clearly getting the upper hand, with her magical shields and cool telekinesis. Tony wasn’t worried about her.

 

Tony was frozen as Maw flung the bolt of black energy straight at Thor’s head.

 

“ _Thor!”_ Loki shouted, but it was too late. Thor’s lightning collided with the energy with a muted flash, and a greyed-out version of the bolt hit Thor straight in the chest.

 

The god crumpled and Maw wheezed a victorious laugh. Wanda gave a vicious cry as Natasha wrapped her legs around Proxima’s neck long enough for the Sokovian girl to decapitate her with an elegant _slice_ of crimson. Valkyrie yelled in fury and slashed at Maw, cutting him down with her elegant blade. His blood spilled black.

 

Tony could hardly breathe.

 

He unfroze enough to retract the nanobots back into the housing compartment and to fall to his knees beside Thor. He attempted to rouse the god by shaking his shoulder, but his fingers only received the sharp bite of an electric shock. Tony was pretty sure he was gasping for air, but he could barely hear anything over the ringing in his ears.

 

Thor’s face screwed up and he turned his head sharply to one side, his eye flashing white-hot beneath the lid. Wanda raced over and held up a glowing hand to Loki in question. The god shook his head. “No,” He whispered, kneeling on the other side of Thor. “It will pull you in, too. He must fight this on his own.”

 

“What is it?” Valkyrie demanded, her blade still dripping black blood. “Lackey, what does it do?”

 

Loki didn’t look up at her. “Maw invested all his energy into a spell that would pull out the, ah, programming. But Thor hit it with his lightning, so I don’t know how strong…” Loki trailed off and he carefully pressed two fingers to Thor’s head. After hardly a moment, he pulled back as if he’d been burned.

 

“What is it?” Valkyrie repeated insistently. “Lackey, _what is it_ ?”

 

Loki shook his head. “He has to fight this on his own. He… we can’t touch him.”

 

“It’s freezing out here,” Steve objected. Tony rubbed his arms for emphasis—it was true. The biting snow and frozen wind was starting to get ridiculous. “We can’t just leave him in the snow.”

 

Loki glanced around, as though he hadn’t realized that it was about -100 degrees outside. “Is it?” He looked up to Valkyrie for confirmation, who quirked an eyebrow and nodded.

 

“Well, hopefully— _watch it, Thor_!” He snapped as a spark jolted him in the chest. “Hopefully it won’t take long. If he can fight it off, it will probably last five, ten minutes.”

 

“Or none,” Valkyrie pointed out, nudging Thor with a foot. “Look at him. He’s about to blow.”

 

Tony eyed Thor speculatively—the chick was right. Thor’s skin was beginning to glow white-hot and the snow was melting into a puddle around him. The clouds darkened and thunder rumbled.

  
“Back away,” Loki warned, getting up from his kneeling position and retreating a dozen yards. “You don’t want to be near when he—”

 

A _crack_ split the sky and the biggest blast of lightning that Tony has ever seen (that anyone has ever seen, probably, because _holy shit_ that is huge) shoots from the sky and directly into Thor’s chest. And when the spots cleared from Tony’s eyes, Thor was on his knees, eye alight and confusion set into his brow.

 

The god sat back on his haunches, the lightning fizzing out as he spotted the dead bodies of the aliens and the living bodies of his friends. The gray sheen that Tony hadn’t noticed had faded from Thor’s face, leaving only old bruises and a scar.

 

Wanda flicked her fingers at Thor’s head, and both of their eyes glowed briefly. Thor flinched as though he’d been burned and Wanda winced, but she made an inviting gesture towards Tony. Thor was free.

 

Loki made a relieved, albeit strangled sound and fell to his knees beside Thor. Loki raked his eyes over his brother once before putting a hand on his brother’s neck and resting his forehead against Thor’s. Loki murmured something and Thor snorted. After another moment, Loki pulled away.

 

It had started to snow.

 

“Quite a show, Point Break,” Tony announced. “I don’t think I really want an encore, though, what do you think, Cap?”

 

Steve gave him a deadpan look, then gave Thor a warm smile. “I’m going to go back to the Compound and alert everyone that the threat’s been dealt with.”

 

“Hey, how come I get the Mommy Steve look but he gets the happy-beard-smile?” Tony complained. “Not fair.”

 

Steve shook his head and turned around, beginning to head back towards the building. “I bet that beard keeps you pretty warm, Bigfoot,” Tony called after him. Steve didn’t respond. Tony stuck his tongue out, then he got the best idea he’d had since the first Iron Man suit.

 

He gathered up the sticky flakes, ignoring Loki’s eye roll and Valkyrie’s puzzled look, and rolled them into a crude ball. Wanda stifled a laugh behind her fingers. Tony took aim at Steve’s back, then fired.

 

Direct hit.

 

Steve turned around, his neck and back absolutely dripping with water and ice, and raised an eyebrow. “You really want to start a snowball fight with a supersoldier and a few Norse gods?”

 

“My darling,” Tony drawled, already tossing another snowball up and down. “I’d _love_ to.”

 

Then he made the fatal mistake of throwing one at Valkyrie. The lady could throw _wicked_ hard. Soon, all the Avengers in the clearing were laughing and shrieking and covered in snow. Even Loki flitted in the shadows, occasionally throwing ice at the back of Thor’s head or in his blind spot when he wasn’t paying attention. Wanda infused her snowballs with red magic, and when they hit, they covered the victim in so much snow that it wouldn’t melt in Hawaii.

 

The other Avengers soon showed up, frantically, skidding in the snow, panicking at the news of aliens and the screams coming from the clearing. It didn’t take long for them to be implicated.

 

The first annual Avengers Snowball Fight had many casualties, including Loki’s dignity and Clint’s favorite arrow, which Natasha snapped in half after he began trying to shoot the snowballs out of the air. It was a vicious fight. No alliances. No rules. A free-for-all.

 

Tony didn’t think Thor had laughed harder in centuries. Tony felt like he hadn’t, either. None of them had. But hey—this was a time for new beginnings.

 

So the Avengers played, rolling and diving and laughing in the falling snow.

 

_fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, I just wanted to say—
> 
> THANK YOU!! Thank you to all of you who have stuck with this story throughout all its angst and hurt and sad Thor-ness. I love and appreciate all of you and reading your comments makes my day brighter. This has been a ride and I've enjoyed every moment of it. This story grew from a simple angst-fest to an actual progressive story, and I am so grateful for you guys supporting it. 
> 
> Stay tuned for more works! I've got a bunch of things in progress. 
> 
> ADDITIONALLY:
> 
> My beta has asked me if I'm doing a part 2. I'm not currently planning one, but what would you guys think? Do you want another part? I'm open to suggestions!
> 
> Thank you!

**Author's Note:**

> Updates are (hopefully) frequent and regular. Well, not exactly regular, but this fic will DEFINITELY be finished before June. Definitely. 
> 
> EDIT: My past self is way too overconfident of my time management skills. It was finished in June, moron.
> 
> Kudos and comments make me update faster, and more importantly, make me smile. :)


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